LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE 



CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 



Its Relation to Evolutio>v 



IN MORALS AND IN DOCTRINE 



J. S. BLACK 




BOSTON 
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 



O MILK STREET 



l3 9 5 



$ 



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Copyright, 1895, by Lee and Shepard 



All rights reserved 



The Christian Consciousness 



Typography by C. J. Pkters & Son, Boston 



Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co. 



PREFACE 



The literature that has been devoted to the 
"Christian Consciousness" has been of a frag- 
mentary character. It has been employed for 
special purposes from the time of Schleier- 
macher to the present day. This will appear 
more at length in the course of this work. 
But the employment of any tenet in philosophy 
or in doctrine for special purposes, while it 
demonstrates the apologetic value of the doc- 
trine, is unfavorable to its general reception 
and systematic study. It receives little more 
than a passing notice from writers on system- 
atic theology and dogma. It has been called 
into the court of public discussion as a witness 
in favor of sensationalism, of Andover theo- 
logy so-called, and of various views in escha- 
tology. The opponents of these views naturally 
and almost inevitably regarded the witness 
with suspicion. Current controvers}^ partakes 
largely of the nature of special pleading, and 
the first thing to do was to discredit the char- 
acter and the testimony of the witness. 



IV PREFACE 

There are several questions that must be 
answered, such as : What is consciousness ? 
Is there a Christian consciousness? If there 
is, what are its relations to consciousness in 
general, and to the religious consciousness in 
particular? What are its functions? Has it 
been hitherto neglected ? Is it an old and 
well-known phase of the truth masquerading 
under a new name, or is it a hitherto much 
neglected and little used part of the armor 
of the Christian apologist? 

In an interview with General Booth, he is 
reported to have said that, while he believed 
the Bible and wished men to read it, the aim 
of his army was to bring men to God rather 
than to the Book. Their endeavor was to get 
men to pray. This was the point of contact 
with God. He admitted that he rather dreaded 
Bible classes, because they got men into dis- 
putation. Removed from the Salvation Army 
by a whole diameter, but moving in the same 
circle, we find the German theologians, to whom 
the usually accepted proofs of the inspiration 
of Scripture are unsatisfactor}* and insufficient, 
but who can accept their inspiration Iry the 
appeal to, and the testimony of, the Christian 
consciousness. Less logical and more vague, 
but of equal significance, is the Christo-cen- 
tric contemporary theology. 



PREFACE V 

The study of the Christian consciousness 
is in its infancy, but the study of it is an aid 
to the development of it. It seems strange, 
at this end of the nineteenth century of the 
Christian era, that there should be an undevel- 
oped, and partly unused, function of the Chris- 
tian life ; a function which not only accounts 
for moral and dogmatic phenomena, but also 
makes God more real to men. It comes at a 
time of need. The glory of the Reformation 
was the exaltation of faith, and the substituting 
the infallible Bible for the infallible church. 
But when infallible systems of theology took 
the place of the infallible book, the church, that 
had glowed in its contact with the living Word, 
became chilled at the touch of dead ortho- 
doxies. The exaltation of the Word became 
a delusion and a snare when pains and penal- 
ties were attached to any interpretation of it 
differing from that of the majority. The 
immediate result of the Reformation was the 
formulation of several creeds and orders of 
church government, each of which made a 
practical claim of infallibility for its own faith 
and discipline. In days of polemic warfare 
the scent for heresy becomes keener and 
keener. It was in order to reason and debate 
concerning the letter of the Word, but it was 



VI PREFACE 

dangerous to speak too freely about its spirit. 
If any one was rasli enough to appeal to his 
own inner light, his own Christian conscious- 
ness and divine persuasion, it was at once 
declared to be a presumption "and spiritual pride 
that savored of blasphemy. The tyranny of 
creeds resembles political tyrannies in its in- 
stinctive desire to keep men under. The 
dismal exaltation of the divine sovereignty 
until it distorted the character of God was 
the instinctive though undesigned policy of ec- 
clesiastical oligarchies. The Christian con- 
sciousness had to hide its diminished head, 
and even doubt and condemn itself. Times 
have changed, and the Christian consciousness 
has its part to play in the momentous era of 
change and development on which the world 
seems to be entering. Hitherto we have spoken 
of the Bible, the church, and the reason as 
being sources of authority. To these three 
the spirit of the age demands the addition of 
the Christian consciousness, as being not only 
a source of authority in and of itself, but also 
as being a touchstone for the trying of the 
Bible, the church, and the reason. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

"What is it ? — Theories about consciousness supplementary to, 
rather than antagonistic to, each other. — Locke, Cousin, 
Descartes, Sir William Hamilton, McCosh, Kant, Herbert 
Spencer. — Instinct, intuition, consciousness. — Religious 
and Christian consciousness. Opinions of Dean Mansell, 
"William F. "Warren, D.D., Professor Candlish, Professor 
Kaftan. — Definition of the Christian consciousness. — Its 
imperative categories. — Illumination that comes from will- 
ing to do God's will. — Reformation theology not favorable 
to the doctrine of the Christian consciousness. — Contem- 
porary misconceptions as to Christian consciousness.— 
Relation of the Christian consciousness to progressive 
morality 1 

CHAPTER II 

THE DIGNITY OF MAN 

Reformation theology belittled man. — It was one-sided. — 
Lecky on exaggerations of human depravity. — The Eighth 
Psalm. — Elohim. — Christian consciousness sees both sides 
of this truth. — Evolution testifies to the dignity of man. — 
Professor Drummond's "Ascent of Man." — Obscurity of 
the beginnings of all civilization. — The progress of Eng- 
vii 



Mil CONTENTS 

lish-speaking peoples. — Italy. — England. — Scotland. — 
United States. — Sir William Dawson on inspired achieve- 
ment 26 

CHAPTER III 

THE DESTINY OF MAN 

The qualifications of the infallibility of the Scriptures. — In- 
fallibility not claimed for the Christian consciousness. — The 
honor it puts upon man. — Evolution and man. — Future 
possibilities for him do not meet the Scriptural statements 
concerning him. — His destiny a future of divine possibili- 
ties. — Three great missing links. — Mr. Huxley's view of 
development coming to an end. — The estimate which 
science makes of man. — The Christian consciousness ac- 
cepts and approves his dignity and destiny 46 

CHAPTER IV 

THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 

Considerations that have prejudiced certain thinkers against 
Christian consciousness. — Schleiermacher. — The Ritchsliau 
school. — Professor Harris. — Dr. Francis Patton. — Dr. 
Behrends. — Standards of Scripture interpretation. — Her- 
bert Spencer. — Henry Lewes. — Historians of civilization. 
— Utilitarianism. — The struggle for existence. — Present- 
day sociology. — Maurice's social morality, theoretical and 
practical. — Views of Benjamin Kidd and Professor Drum- 
mond 61 

CHAPTER V 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 

In ancient times. — In Puritan times. — John Bacon's w ill. — 
The evolution of opinion about slavery. —The relation of 



CONTENTS IX 

discovery and invention to evolution in morals. — The 
earlier opponents of slavery. — Samuel Sewall. — Legal 
action of different countries. — Opinions of Washington, 
Jefferson, Monroe, and Patrick Henry.— Opinions of clergy- 
men during the "War of the Rebellion. — The political econ- 
omist's explanation. — Dr. Munger on slavery. — The part 
played by the Christian consciousness 82 

CHAPTER VI 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, 
THE OPIUM TRADE, AND GAMBLING 

Total abstinence a recent reform. — The former and present 
relation of the church to it. — The Abstemii. — The Naza- 
rites. — Parallel between slavery and intemperance. — 
Opium trade. — Its unique character. — The conscience of 
Britain against it. — The secret of its power. — Relation of 
enlightened public sentiment to the Christian conscious- 
ness. — Gambling the vice common to heathenism and to 
Christianity. —The possibility of heathenism condemning 
gambling. — The growth of Christian sentiment against 
• lug. — Mercantile gambling. — Huxley's pessimism. 

— Silence of Scripture on this vice. — Professor Proctor. — 
Similar questions that might be considered .... 103 

CHAPTER VII 

THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TO EVOLUTION IN MORALS 

The charges brought against the church, and the inferences 
therefrom. — Misrepresentation of the church. —Its human 
side.— Its size. — Its age. — Its prime function. — Its lax 
discipline in regard to conduct, and its vigilance in dogma. 

— The environment of moral movements. — The union with 
the state. — The opposite extreme. -=- The church not a 
club 125 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE RELIGIOUS CON- 
SCIOUSNESS OK THE HEATHEN WORLD 

Agreement of geology and revelation. — Sir William Dawson's 
view. — Noah. — Abraham. — Melchisedec. — Job. — Jetliro, 
Baalam. — Contact of Hebrew and Greek. — Septuagint. — 
Huxley. — The logos. — The condition of the religious con- 
sciousness when Christ came. — The centuries of silence. — 
Greek thought. — Buddhism. — Confucianism and Taoism. 

— The condition of morality when Jesus was on earth . 142 

CHAPTER IX 

THE RELATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS TO DOCTRINE 

Has there been an evolution of doctrine? — The difficulty of 
separating morals from doctrine. — Various definitions of 
doctrine. — The salvation of infants. — Original sin and in- 
herited guilt. — Sacramentarianism. — The spirit of the age. 

— Salvation of the heathen. — Andover theology. — Rational 
sanctions and exegetical justification. — Do Christians be- 
lieve that the heathen are perishing?— Features common 
to infant salvation, and the salvation of the heathen. — 
The character of God, when involved. — The legal infliction 
of torture. — Exceptions to the prevailing belief. — What has 
brought about the change ? 103 

CHAPTER X 

CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE 
CHURCH 

A question of doctrine as well as of polity.— Paul's teaching. 
— "Woman's place in the Roman Catholic Church. — Opin- 
ion of Robinson of Leyden. — Woman's evolution as a 
teacher. — As a Christian worker. — Study of medicine. — 



CONTENTS xi 

Salvation Army. — Young People's Society of Christian 
Endeavor. — Woman in college and in theological semi- 
naries. — Application to this question of Mr. Kidd's philos- 
ophy. — Of Professor Drummond's. — George MacDonald's 
view. — The " Gesta Christi." — Woman in the religious 
community. — In the age of chivalry . 183 

CHAPTER XI 

CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 

The thirst for hlood. — War. — The War of the Rebellion. — 
A moral problem. — As a peacemaker Christianity has 
been a failure. — The duel. — Severities of the criminal 
code. — Judicial combat. — The prize-ring and college foot- 
ball. — Danger a popular attraction. — Societies for the 
prevention of cruelty to animals. — Admiration of personal 
daring. — Danger of the loss of manliness and courage. — 
The moral force of Charles Loring Brace. — The problem 
presented in this chapter 202 

CHAPTER XII 

OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 

Objections to evolution in morals. — View of President E. G. 
Robinson. — Unchanging morality. — When true. — Xon- 
Christian ethical systems. — The divine and the human 
thought. — Joseph Cook. — Christian consciousness and 
sectarianism. — Hindrance to union. — Schleiermacher's 
views. — Eschatology. — The questions raised by physical 
science and by the higher criticism not to be dreaded. — 
The moral difficulties are real and persistent. — Various 
kinds of doubt. — The revealing of the Father. — The eve 
of great changes. — Young Men's Christian Associations, 
The Salvation Army, and Young People's Society of Chris- 
tian Endeavor. — The healing of schism 219 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 



CHAPTER I 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

Consciousness is the knowledge of that 
which passes in one's own mind. It is at once 
the knowledge and the power to know. It is the 
instrument of observation as well as of intro- 
spection ; and therefore by the observations of 
consciousness we can attain to conclusions as to 
principles or morals before we have had expe- 
rience to guide us. Physiology cannot furnish 
any explanation of thought or of consciousness. 
In common speech the knowledge of sensation 
is familiarly and vaguely expressed by this 
word, and we have modifying phrases which are 
not always philosophically accurate. Such ex- 
pressions as partially conscious, painfully con- 
scious, semi-conscious, and fully conscious, may 
not be exact terms in metaphysics, but they 
convey ideas with sufficient clearness, 
l 



2 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

What is consciousness ? What is the prov- 
ince of it ? and what is the power of it ? are 
questions which have been keenly debated by 
the various schools of philosophy. Is the pure 
development of reason better secured by ab- 
straction from all finite and material objects, 
than by mingling with and comprehending the 
world in which we live ? This question was 
old in the days of Aristotle. Know thyself is 
the watchword of philosophy. Knowledge of 
one's self is consciousness, but not the whole 
of consciousness. It has been well said that the 
possibility of science and of morality rests on 
the "universality of consciousness. Man comes 
out of a past about which' he learns more or 
less ; and he dies at the threshold of a future 
concerning which reason has taught him to an- 
ticipate a little, and faith has enabled him to 
prophesy many things. He is a limi'ted frag- 
ment of an unknown whole ; but he can look 
over the edge of his territory into the undiscov- 
ered country, for he can reason from particulars 
to generals. The unlimited and unexplored be- 
comes a part of his consciousness. "It is by 
the God within that we can understand the 
God without." The Bible assures man that the 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 3 

things he does not know now he shall know 
hereafter ; and this hereafter is not always and 
necessarily a future state of existence. Science 
declares that what he does not know now he 
may know hereafter. We live on an island 
called Earth. We are conscious of ourselves 
and of our surroundings; but we know only in 
part, for we have not yet explored the whole of 
our island. We are not yet masters of the 
world within or of the world without. The 
telescope and the spectroscope enable us to 
land some of the driftwood that floats to us 
from the other islands, called worlds, in this in- 
finite sea ; and we refuse to believe that this is 
all that we are to have, and all that we are to 
know. The story of the past echoes our heart- 
cry for more light. It tells of secret after se- 
cret unfolded. Subjective knowledge has not 
made as much progress as has objective knowl- 
edge. 

The theories about, and the definitions of, 
consciousness that have been advanced by mor- 
alists and metaphysicians, may be regarded as 
being not antagonistic to each other, but rather 
as supplementary to each other. Locke says 
that complex ideas can be resolved into simple 



4 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

ideas; and that simple ideas come to us through 
sense perception; that is, by the gateway of the 
physical senses. This is sensation. The second 
factor to the production of an idea is reflection. 
But reflection is another name for consciousness. 
In many things Locke is more orthodox than he 
knew himself to be, or than he intended to be. 
He exalts sense perception, but he has done 
good in calling attention to the relation of the 
physical senses to ideas. Cousin says, " Con- 
sciousness is composed of three inseparable ele- 
ments ; viz., sensibility, or sense perception ; 
activity, or liberty ; and reason. The middle 
element, activity or liberty, is a sort of postu- 
late between sensibility and reason." The sen- 
sibility and reason of Cousin are the sensation 
and reflection of Locke. Descartes' famous 
" Cogito, ergo sum " is the reason of Cousin and 
the reflection of Locke. The primary data of 
consciousness, according to Sir William Ham- 
ilton, are truths of perception and truths of 
reason. He is a realist, and exalts the dictates 
of consciousness. We do not, however, assert 
that idealists belittle the commanding power 
of consciousness. In the words of McCosh, 
" We know self as having being, existence. The 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 5 

knowledge we have in self-consciousness, which 
is associated with every intelligent act, is not 
an impression, as Hume would say, nor a mere 
quality or attribute, as certain of the Scott is! 1 
metaphysicians affirm, nor a phenomenon in 
the sense of appearance, as Kant supposes, but 
of a thing or reality." Kant affirms that space 
and time are the forms given by the mind to 
the phenomena which are presented through 
the senses, and are not to be supposed as hav- 
ing anything more than a subjective existence. 
McCosh holds this to be a fatal heresy, and 
opposed to the revelations of consciousness. 
In his well-known chapter on the " Physiology 
of Laughter," Herbert Spencer says, " There is 
still another direction in which any excited por- 
tion of the nervous system may discharge itself; 
and a direction in which it usually does dis- 
charge itself when the excitement is not strong. 
It may pass on the stimulus to some other por- 
tion of the nervous system. This is what occurs 
in quiet thinking and feeling. The successive 
states which constitute consciousness result 
from this. . . . While we are totally unable 
to comprehend how the excitement of certain 
nerves should generate feeling, — while, in the 



6 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

production of consciousness by physical agents 
acting on physical structure, we come to an 
absolute mystery, never to be solved, it is yet 
quite possible for us to know by observation 
what are the successive forms which this abso- 
lute mystery may take." This is materialism 
pure and simple. 

A certain amount of confusion arises from 
permitting ourselves to get into a habit of in- 
definite thinking about instinct, intuition, and 
consciousness. An instinct is a faculty inde- 
pendent of instruction and prior to experience. 
When we use such expressions as " instinctive 
reverence," "instinctive worship," our words 
are meaningless, except in so far as they are 
misleading. The errors of the pulpit in the 
use of the words instinct and instinctive are 
many ttnd various. An intuition is a self- 
evident, necessary, and universal truth. It is 
not mere insight, nor is it illumination, whether 
sacred or secular. It is not inspiration, which 
is the gift of infallibility in proclaiming moral 
and religious truth. It is not illumination, 
which is the glow and white heat with which 
light comes to our minds. Inspiration may 
produce this intellectual glow ; but it may and 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 7 

usually does come as the result of ratiocination, 
or of memory, or of unconscious cerebration 
and association of ideas. The intuitions of 
the mind are not before consciousness, nor are 
they identical with consciousness, or parallel 
with it, but rather should we say that our in- 
tuitions are supplied by the exercise of con- 
sciousness and memory. We have the fruits 
and results of metaphysics, but the question is 
as to origin rather than as to mode. It is not 
a priori or a posteriori, realist or idealist, de- 
ductive or inductive ; for to-day the query is 
is not, What is consciousness ? but, Whence is 
it? Is our conception materialistic or theistic? 
Sir William Hamilton declares that "no dif- 
ficulty emerges in theology which had not 
previously emerged in philosophy." It is im- 
possible to conceive of the Christian or religious 
consciousness which is not of theistic origin. 1 

1 Many writers, while not expressing themselves very defi- 
nitely, seem to imply that the religious consciousness is quite 
possible in any form of belief. Livingstone in his last journal 
remarks that he never had met with an African chief whom 
he could not make ashamed of selling his own people into 
slavery, but arousing the conscience is not the creating of reli- 
gious consciousness. It must always be a question as to how 
near the theistic conception the more thoughtful heathen are, 
while within the borders of civilization we may grant, the per- 
sonal honesty of non-theists, who may call themselves agnostics, 



8 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

In the use of the terms " Christian Conscious- 
ness " and "religious consciousness" as inter- 
changeable, it is to be borne in mind that while 
practically no confusion of thought results, the 
terms are not synonymous. All Christian con- 
sciousness is religious consciousness ; but all 
religious consciousness is not, therefore, Chris- 
tian consciousness. The Buddhist and Mo- 
hammedan have a religious consciousness which 
is not Christian. The Christian consciousness 
differs from theirs not only in degree, but also 
in kind. What is Christian consciousness? 
This question has had many answers. Dean 
Mansell, in his Bampton Lectures entitled the 
"Limits of Religious Thought," reasons from 
the general conditions of all human conscious- 
ness that there is a necessary limitation to its 
powers, and therefore an inability to conceive 
the Infinite. His conditions of consciousness 
are : — 

(1) Distinction between one object and an- 
other. 

(2) Relation between subject and object. 



or materialists, or atheists, and yet refuse to believe in the 
possibility of their being able to free themselves from the 
theistic conception. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS i) 

(3) Succession and duration in time. 

(4) Personality. 

He holds that the religious consciousness is 
reflective and intuitive. The reasonings of the 
reflective consciousness are sufficient to correct 
our conception of a supreme being, but not 
sufficient to originate such a conception. The 
other part of consciousness — religious intui- 
tion — manifests itself in the feeling of de- 
pendence, and in the conviction of moral 
obligation. These two conditions beget prayer 
and expiation. Dependence implies a personal 
superior, hence our conviction of the power of 
God. Moral obligation implies a moral law- 
giver, hence our conviction of the goodness of 
God. His limits of religious consciousness 
are : — 

(1) That a sense of dependence is not a 
consciousness of the absolute and the infinite. 

(2) Nor is a sense of moral obligation a 
consciousness of the absolute and the infinite. 

(3) Religious consciousness implies the in- 
finite. 

(4) God is known as a person through the 
consciousness of ourselves as persons. There 
can be no philosophical theism without this 



10 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

consciousness. The materialist or the pan- 
theist who denies his own personality is on the 
straight road to atheism. 

Fifteen years after Dean Mansell's book was 
published, the Rev. William F. Warren, D.D., 
Dean of the Boston University School of The- 
ology, delivered one of the Boston lectures on 
" Christianity and Scepticism." His theme was 
" The Christian Consciousness : its apologetic 
value." His position is : — 

(1) Every man has some sort of religious 
consciousness, e.g., theistic, pantheistic, poly- 
theistic, atheistic. 

There are sub-types of religious conscious- 
ness, e.g., Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan. 

His leading traits of the ideal Christian con- 
sciousness are : — 

(1) An immediate knowledge or feeling or 
realization of some kind of personal communion 
with God. He subdivides into the Old Testa- 
ment religions or God-consciousness, the ordi- 
nary Christian consciousness, and the higher- 
life Christian consciousness. The apologetic 
value of the Christian consciousness over the 
atheistic, polytheistic, and pantheistic is, that 
the votaries of these last three believe, but 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 11 

the Christian knows. He holds that in the 
narrower field of controversy, where theistie 
naturalism and supranaturalism grapple, the 
facts of normal Christian consciousness forever 
settle, for its possessor, every speculative doubt 
and difficulty — that miracles and incarnation 
are easily grasped by Christian consciousness. 

Professor Candlish, of the Free Church Col- 
lege, Glasgow, wrote the article " Dogmatic " in 
the ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica," since published in fuller shape in book 
form. He says, " The inward spiritual enlight- 
enment of the believer corresponds very nearly 
to what has been called Christian conscious- 
ness." He ascribes the phrase to Schleier- 
macher, whose fundamental principle was that 
religion consists properly in feeling, and that 
we have an immediate consciousness of the 
divine — a God-consciousness. This Mansell 
denies. It will be found that the truth lies 
between the sensationalism of Schleiermacher 
and the intellectualism against which he re- 
volted ; but the difficulty is to find a meeting- 
place for sensationalism and intellectualism 
which will be satisfactory to both. 

Professer Kaftan divides with Professor Har- 



12 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

nack the honors of brilliance and popularity 
in the University of Berlin. He brings en- 
thusiasm and spirituality to his work. He is 
the most distinguished advocate of the Ritsch- 
lian school of theology, the avowed object of 
which is to reconcile supranaturalism and ra- 
tionalism. The task which this school has as- 
signed itself does not seem as difficult of 
accomplishment as it did twenty years ago. 
With Schleiermacher they assert that the reli- 
gious consciousness is the fountain of belief. 
They antagonize metaphysical statement of doc- 
trine, and exalt the moral side of life and 
religion. While they maintain that the Holy 
Scriptures are the final and supreme authority in 
doctrine, because in them we have the Christian 
consciousness in its primitive purity, they are 
not orthodox on the question of inspiration. 

This most popular school of religious thought 
in Germany of to-day has many attractive fea- 
tures ; and it is certain, in the near future, to 
exercise wide influence in America. Religious 
consciousness as taught in Germany to-day ex- 
alts the subjective determination of truth, and 
in this lies its danger. The counterfeits of 
Christian consciousness will prove as danger- 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 13 

ous as the exaggerations of it, or the ignoring 
of it. Like every real thing, it has to he 
sifted and tried, for it cannot he ignored. 

Religious consciousness is consciousness plus 
the theistic conception ; and Christian con- 
sciousness is religious consciousness with cer- 
tain notable additions. These are : — 

(1) What we know of our faith and of our 
feelings in the light of the revealed Word. 

(2) What we know of our will to do God's 
will. 

(3) What we know of the promised result 
of this willing to do God's will. 

(4) What we know of being led by the Holy 
Spirit into truth. 

(5) What we know of the witness of the 
Holy Spirit with our spirits as to our divine 
sonship. 

The Holy Scriptures are the supreme author- 
ity in doctrine and in life. We do not claim, 
like the German school to which reference has 
been made, that the Holy Scriptures are in a 
sense subordinate to the Christian conscious- 
ness; nor need we, like Professor Candlish, 
maintain that the Christian consciousness is a 
subordinate authority. It is a co-ordinate au- 



14 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

thority. It is the illumined Word. It is not 
a primary and independent source of authority, 
but it takes the initiative in all change. 
Through it the new light from the Word of 
God flashes forth. We do not assert that the 
Christian consciousness is necessarily and 
always unerring. 

The Papal claim of infallibility is not based 
on the Christian consciousness. There is no 
question as to the possibility of the Christian 
consciousness outgrowing the Holy Scriptures. 
It is as reasonable to speak of outgrowing the 
multiplication table as of outgrowing the Deca- 
logue and the Sermon on the Mount. We 
make mistakes in our interpretation of the 
Scriptures. We make mistakes in our inter- 
pretation of the Christian consciousness. A 
mistake in dogma is an error ; persistent error 
becomes the sin of heresy. A mistake of a 
moral kind is also an error. But the error of 
to-day often becomes the sin of the future. 

God is immanent in mind and in matter. 
Man has a conscience. In that conscience, 
by God's immanence in mind, a moral law is 
revealed. A moral law leads naturally to the 
law-maker, the law-keeper, and the law-breaker. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 15 

The Word of God reveals the law-maker 
and the moral law. God's manifestation of him- 
self in Christ illumines the sacred Word. Con- 
sciousness becomes Christian consciousness. It 
proves all things, and holds fast to that which 
is good. It has certain imperative categories 
which are its touchstones. 

(i) What does the Word of God say? 

(2) Is this or is it not the letter that kills? 

(3) What is the spirit of it? 

(4) In what way can moral certitude be 
attained ? 

(5) That is — How shall I know that the 
Spirit of truth is witnessing with my spirit ? 

(6) Shall not this be brought to the test of 
reason ? 

(7) Shall not the final appeal be the Chris- 
tian consciousness ? 

It is self-evident that we cannot o-et from the 

o 

Word of God that which is not in it ; but there 
are treasures in it, both new and old. Our 
Lord tells us to search the Scriptures. The 
man who imagines that his Christian conscious- 
ness is to be the result of a miracle of grace, 
without effort on his part, is on the high road 
to fanaticism. " He that wills to do God\s 



16 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

will shall know the doctrine." a Obedience to 
the divine will brings certitude to the soul with 
regard to moral truth. A single-hearted desire 
to please God illumines every question of a re- 
ligious nature. Looked at from the standpoint 
of human philosophy, this is a most astounding 
assertion that Christ makes. When he uttered 
those words, earth listened to a new truth. He 
does not say, " If any man wills to do his will, 
lie shall know that the teaching is wise or good 
or of superior excellence." Such statements as 
these are made every day. When any law or 
business scheme or system of government is 
presented to- the individual or to the commu- 
nity, we examine it in the light of past expe- 
rience, and of recognized laws and general 
principles, and come to a conclusion as to 
whether we should accept or reject this thing. 
Sometimes the result proves that we make a 
mistake. We are overpersuaded by the inge- 
nious advocacy, or promoters and adopters of 
this new departure were equally mistaken. 

When there is great conflict of opinion as to 
the advantage of this new thing, the plea 
usually is to give it a fair and practical trial, 

i John vii. 17. 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 17 

and by so doing demonstrate on which side the 
sound reasoning is. The political economy of 
our own and other countries is a practical illus- 
tration of this law in its working. That our 
putting the Scripture code into practice should 
convince us that it is very excellent, and suited 
to mankind, need excite no surprise. From the 
standpoint of secular history, Mosaic law is 
as worthy of study as is Roman or Greek law. 
( )ne of the wonders of history is, that while 
Rome was in the zenith of her glory, and Pal- 
estine was but a fragment of her vast domin- 
ions, the future of earth was being moulded, 
not in the imperial city, but by a peasant of 
that insignificant province. In view of the his- 
torical antecedents, there is nothing wonderful 
in the man or the community that models its 
life after the Bible pattern, finding that the 
legislation is a model of wisdom and of benefi- 
cence. But our Lord did not say that he who 
did the will of God .was to find out that the 
teaching was wise or good, but that he was to 
know that the teaching came from God. This 
discovery of the supernatural origin of the 
Word, this higher evidence of the authenticity 
of Scripture, is the wonderful thing in this 




18 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

statement of our Lord's. He does not teach 
that the mere performance of the things com- 
manded will produce this result ; but lie does 
teach that if a man's heart be set on doing the 
will of God, this supranatural divine illumina- 
tion comes. This divine illumination is the 
miracle of grace. It is a part, but not the 
whole, of the Christian consciousness. It has 
been much neglected by the individual Chris- 
tian, and has been almost always practically 
ignored by the church; but it rises above faith. 
Faith gives us certainty where reason may fail 
us ; but the Christian consciousness turns faith 
into sight. He does not believe that the Word 
is from God. He knows it. 

By the genuineness and authenticity of the 
Scriptures must the Word stand or fall in the 
presence of that criticism which will not ac- 
knowledge the function of faith or of Christian 
consciousness. On such unbelievers we can 
still bring to bear the external and internal 
evidence in favor of inspiration. The external 
evidence can prove that almost all our New 
Testament was produced by the age to which it 
professes to belong ; that for the most part it is 
the word of the living witness, and not the com- 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 19 

pilation of dim tradition. But external evidence 
by itself can never be proof positive of the 
divine origin of the Bible. The internal evi- 
dence will satisfy certain types of mind as a 
sufficient proof of the superhuman origin of the 
Bible; and the external and internal evidence 
combined will to many minds be a satisfactory 
proof of inspiration. But this mode of proof is 
confined to the scholarly few. Our Lord does 
not limit his promise to any select group. He 
does not say, if any man wills to do his will, 
and then pursues a certain course of study, but 
if any man wills. The offer of illumination is 
as wide as is the offer of salvation. Two per- 
ennial miracles live }*et in the church of God. 
The assurance of salvation — of personal salva- 
tion — is the miracle of peace ; and the certainty 
that God is speaking to us in his Book is the 
miracle of knowledge. 

The keynote of the Reformation was faith. 
" The just shall live by faith." Faith versus 
works, and faith versus morality, was the great 
theme of the pulpits of Protestantism for a cen- 
tury after the Reformation. The legend of 
Rome was, "Do this and live;" the legend of 
Protestantism was, "Believe and live." It was 



20 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

natural and to be expected ; but definite teach- 
ing concerning the knowledge of God, and 
what it is to know God, was conspicuously 
absent. The Confession of Faith, the Thirty- 
nine Articles, and the Catechism unite in hav- 
ing very little to say on this head. Knowledge 
was confused with and identified with faith. 
In the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster 
divines occurs the question, What is faith in 
Jesus Christ? It is a fundamental question, 
and the answer to it is as nearly perfect as we 
can imagine uninspired language to be ; but 
alongside of it should have been such a ques- 
tion as, What is the knowledge of God ? How 
many sermons in Protestant pulpits have been 
preached from Isa. viii. 2 : " By his knowledge 
shall my righteous servant justify many." Jesus 
himself said that it was life eternal to know 
God. Christian consciousness has been ob- 
scured, because life-giving knowledge has been 
neglected or identified with faith, or treated as 
the synonym of information, and nothing more. 
What is the province of Christian conscious- 
ness ? It does not debate. It begins with " I 
know." Such questions as the mode of baptism 
and apostolic succession are in the field of rati- 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 21 

ocination, not in the field of the Christian con- 
sciousness. Knowledge, and the processes of 
knowledge, in so far as the will and mind of 
God can be found in us, is the field given to us. 
God gives wisdom liberally, and does not scorn 
us for our need of it. This is not the talent 
which we must occupy, but it is the gift that 
occupies us. It is a constituent element of our 
Christian consciousness. 

Christ is with his church always, to the end 
of the age, but only in so far as he is in the 
hearts of some or all of its members. Faith 
moves mountains, but Christian consciousness 
knows that this mountain is in God's way. 
Christian consciousness draws the people of 
God together in spite of the very definite rea- 
sons which they have for keeping apart from 
each other. 

Man was made in the image of God. By his 
fall he lost communion witli God, but lie did 
not lose the likeness. It has not yet been dem- 
onstrated that any man is wholly devoid of 
the religious consciousness. This is at once 
a more scientific and a more satisfactory ex- 
pression than the " light of nature." May not 
the salvation of the heathen be determined 



22 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

more by the God consciousness that is in him 
than by any reasoning that he has been able 
to clo " from nature up to nature's God " ? It is 
the religious consciousness, and not speculations 
concerning the attributes and the works of God, 
that must enable a man to escape judgment by 
judging himself. There are certain moral and 
ethical standards into which man has entered 
by the processes of reason ; but there are moral 
and ethical dogmas which have come, as it 
were, out of a clear sky. Spontaneous genera- 
tion in morals or ethics is as unthinkable as is 
spontaneous generation in matter ; but the 
consideration of this topic, and its relation to 
consciousness, will come under the head of evo- 
lution in morals. It cannot be too deeply 
impressed upon our minds that there is no ne- 
cessary conflict between the authority of Scrip- 
ture and the religious consciousness. On the 
contrary, that German school to which reference 
has been already made, after drifting from the 
orthodox view of inspiration, has found the 
way back to reverence for the Word by their 
Christian consciousness. In one of the best 
of our religious weekly newspapers, which need 
not be named, an article appeared on the Chris- 



"HE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 23 

tian consciousness, in which it was charged 
with being an excuse for heresy, and with being 
the ally of the higher criticism. Sucli an utter 
misapprehension of the nature and province of 
the Christian consciousness can scarcely be im- 
agined. So far, it has counteracted the evil ef- 
fects of what we may call heresy. The higher 
criticism is a detail of scholarship, and it has 
neither more nor less connection or affiliation 
with the Christian consciousness than any other 
department of scholarship has. 

There is a trinity of illumination, — the 
lifdit of revelation, the lio-ht of the religious 
consciousness, and the light of nature. God 
is the creator, the Holy Spirit the inspirer, and 
Christ in us the revealer. In the past the 
church lias been undignified, timid, and apolo- 
getic when charged b}^ her enemies with her 
changes of front on questions of ethics, of 
morals, and of interpretation. The right con- 
ception of the Christian consciousness should 
make the church glory in her changing, in her 
development, and in her elasticity. Those 
philosophers who are not inclined to introduce 
any theological or supranatural element into 
their conceptions of man's moral and ethical 



24 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

development have an ideal which they worship 
after a fashion. They maintain that the good 
deeds and the good thoughts of men have come 
from their aspirations after an ideal. We 
accept it all and go farther. Our ideal lias 
become real to us in Christ. He is not only 
our hero and example and leader, but we have 
a consciousness of him. He is found in us, 
and we are found in him. 

It is significant that, in the eighteenth cen- 
tuiy, when the pulpit contented itself with 
preaching moral essays, the majority of the 
philosophers of the same century were deter- 
mined that theology should not have any place 
in their systems of moral philosophy. Locke, 
Shaftesbury, Hobbes, Hume, Bentham, and Kant 
are all at one in this respect ; and it was almost 
the only point on which they were agreed. 
They had a very imperfect conception of reli- 
gion, and for this the then current religious 
teaching was responsible. It was a cold, formal 
externalism. It had no inner life. There was 
no Christian consciousness. There was a God 
in heaven, whose business it was to deal out 
rewards and punishments in a fatherly or in 
a vindictive fashion, as the preacher happened 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 25 

to feel; but the yearning love of God for man 
and man's apprehension of God, were obscured. 
Hume's utilitarianism, or Bentham's greatest 
good of the greatest number, or Kant's impera- 
tive, was really a better scheme of the moral 
world than was the Dryasdust formalism of 
the church, in which there was no Christian 
consciousness, and very little of Christ as Jesus 
the Messiah. 



26 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 



CHAPTER II 

THE DIGNITY OF MAN 

The growth of the Christian consciousness 
was retarded from the fact that it placed 
dignity on man as the child of God. The Ref- 
ormation theology had a tendency to an aus- 
terity which gave undue prominence to one 
side of the truth. That Adam fell from the 
estate wherein he was created by eating the 
forbidden fruit ; that all mankind, descended 
from him by ordinary generation, sinned in 
him and fell with him in his first transgression ; 
that the sinfulness of our estate consists in 
the guilt of Adam's first sin, in the want of 
original righteousness, in the corruption of our 
whole nature, together with all actual trans- 
gressions which proceed from it; that no 
mere man since the fall is able perfectly to 
keep the commandments of God, but doth 
daily break them in thought, word, and deed; 
that every sin deserves God's wrath and 
curse, both in this life and in that which is to 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 27 

come, — may all be doctrinally sound, and may 
be supported by proof texts ; but it is a little 
depressing, and it gives humanity the gloomiest 
possible view of itself. Nor is the gloom dis- 
pelled by the unfolding of the plan of redemp- 
tion ; for, while our soul shrinks at the universal 
loss and ruin, we are told that God, " having out 
of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, 
elected some to everlasting life, did enter into 
a covenant of grace to deliver them out of 
their estate of sin and misery, and to bring them 
into an estate of salvation by a redeemer." 
It is a depressing view of the truth, and it 
led to a conventional habit of self-depreciation 
that was not always sincere. The Penitential 
Psalm fits the case of the adulterer and mur- 
derer, and is an appropriate hymn for the 
condemned cell on the morning of an execu- 
tion ; but it may be used in a morbid fashion. 
It is true that in these days there is a tendency 
to the other extreme, and the " only believe," 
"trust him," "take him," of certain phases of 
revivalism, but not of all evangelists, ignore 
repentance unto life, and belittle restitution ; 
but the older setting and statement of the truth 
belittled man. Granting that it is technically 



28 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

correct to say that all mankind by the fall 
lost communion with God, are under his wrath 
and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries 
of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of 
hell forever — it is, after all, only a half-truth. 
If man lost the Adamic communion, it was to 
find the Christ communion. If he is under 
God's wrath and curse, he is also under his 
love and mercy. If he is made liable to all 
the miseries of this life, he rejoices in hope. 
If he must encounter the pains of death, he also 
exultingly cries, " O death, where is thy sting? " 
If the pains of hell forever and forever lie 
before persistent choosing of evil rather than 
of good, he knows that full and free salvation 
is offered to him ; and in his inmost soul he 
knows that the guilt of rejection must be his 
own guilt, and that no divine decree, no iron 
necessity in the nature of things, will prevent 
his attainment of everlasting felicity. 

A departure from the right proportion and 
perspective of truth has all the evil conse- 
quences of error. Lecky, in his " History of 
European Morals," says, " But these exaggera- 
tions of human depravity, which have attained 
their extreme limits in some Protestant sects, 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 29 

do not appear in the church of the first three 
centuries. The sense of sin was not yet accom- 
panied by a denial of the goodness that exists 
in man. Christianity was regarded rather as 
a redemption from error than from sin ; and it 
is a significant fact that the epithet 4 well 
deserving,' which the pagans usually put upon 
their tombs, was also the favorite inscription 
in the Christian catacombs. The Pelagian con- 
troversy, the teachings of St. Augustine, and 
the progress of asceticism, gradually introduced 
the doctrine of the utter depravity of man, 
which has proved in later times the fertile 
source of degrading superstition." 

The Eighth Psalm is an exulting chant, and 
its theme is the excellence of God as mani- 
fested in the greatness of man. The central 
thought, so far as the greatness of man is con- 
cerned, is the fifth verse : " For thou hast made 
him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honor." The 
false translation of our Authorized Versioi of 
this verse did injury to the truth, not only by 
its own error, but also by affecting our attitude 
to the New Testament doctrine of man. The 
Revised Version makes a very striking change : 



30 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

"For thou hast made him but little lower than 
Gocl." How comes so radical a change? The 
original word Elohim is the plural form of the 
word for God. The plural is by far the more 
common form of the word. It is the form used 
in the first chapter of Genesis, aud in the Dec- 
alogue. It means god, gods, objects of wor- 
ship. This psalm is the only case in which the 
word is translated angels. The translators were 
doubtless inclined to this rendering by doc- 
trinal considerations. It was out of harmony 
with the prevailing thought of the age, and it 
was in sharp contrast to those Scriptures which 
enlarge on the distance between God and man. 
The Authorized Version is unfortunate in its 
rendering of this word, because the psalm sees 
the glory of man in his being the lord of crea- 
tion; but angels are not associated with any 
dominion over this earth of ours. They are 
ministering, not ruling, spirits. Man, in his 
present earth life, may be lower than the angels 
who serve God, and who are sent forth on er- 
rands of " supernal grace ; " but man's inferior- 
ity to angels is not taught in the Scriptures. 
In his ultimate destiny he will be greater, for 
he will be the judge of angels (1 Cor. vi. 3). 



THE DIGNITY OF MAX 31 

On the other hand, it is universally admitted 
that it is only in a limited sense that we can ap- 
propriate the being- but little lower than God. 
This has been felt by the great majority of 
expositors. Hengstenberg says, " The Eloliim 
expresses the abstract idea of Godhead." In 
Zech. xii. 8, Eloliim may be regarded as identi- 
cal with, or as parallel with, the " Angel of 
the Lord;" but many regard the words as dis- 
tinct images of the glory that was to come to 
the house of David. The most difficult pas- 
sage, so far as the use of the word Eloliim is 
concerned, is 1 Sam. xxviii. 13; and in this case 
it is to be noted that the Revision changes "I 
saw gods," into "I saw a god." Calvin's com- 
ment is : " Parum abesse eum jussisti a divino et 
coelesti statu" — lacking but little of the divine 
and heavenly, or an almost super-earthly dig- 
nity. Hengstenberg's translation is : " Thou 
makest him to want little of a divine stand- 
ing." Our Authorized Version is a literal trans- 
lation of the Vulgate : " Minuisti eum paulo 
minus ab angelis." This is the same as the Sep- 
tuagint. The Septuagint and the Vulgate had 
a good deal of weight with King James's trans- 
lators, for the very sufficient reason that they 



32 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

knew Latin and Greek much better than they 
knew Hebrew ; but they knew Hebrew too well 
to account for this translation being other than 
deliberate choice on their part. Luther's Bible 
was before them. He translates, as our Revis- 
ion does : " Du urirst ihn lassen eine Heine Zeit 
von Gott verlassen sein" 

The reference in this psalm is to certain spe- 
cial privileges bestowed on man ; but a broad, 
general truth is also indicated, which may be 
thus stated. Man is made in the image of God. 
This image has been defaced or marred, not 
lost or blotted out. It can be restored. The 
dignity of man is in his past, a divine origin ; 
in his present, divine possibilities ; and in his 
future, a divine destiny. The Christian con- 
sciousness contemplates its greatness not in any 
vainglorious fashion, but in reverential mood. 
It does not ignore the revealed contrasted little- 
ness of which it is always profoundly conscious. 
" Verily every man at his best estate is alto- 
gether vanity " (Ps. xxxix. 5). " Man being 
in honor abideth not : he is like the beasts that 
perish" (Ps. xlix. 12, 20). And yet there is 
a perfect man whom we should study, and an 
upright man whom we should imitate. To- 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 33 

day man is saying, " Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die;" but when the to-morrow 
comes, light perhaps has shined into the gross 
soul, and he cries that he cannot live by bread 
only: he hungers and thirsts for every word 
that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Poets 
and moralists like to dwell on these contra- 
dictions and opposites of human nature. One 
exclaims, " How poor a thing is man ! " while 
another declares that " Man is a pendulum, 
'twixt a smile and a tear." Pascal says that 
" Man is at once the glory and the scandal 
of the universe." Shakespeare had this Eighth 
Psalm in mind when he wrote, " What a piece 
of work is a man ! How noble in reason, how 
infinite in faculties ; in form and moving, how 
express and admirable; in action, how like an 
angel ; in apprehension, how like a god." God- 
like apprehension is Christian consciousness. 

These extremes of vice and virtue, of benev- 
olence and malevolence, are peculiar to man 
so far as We know the universe. Heaven is 
the home of holiness and of every conceivable 
moral and spiritual excellence. In view of the 
fall of the angels, we dare not affirm that sin is 
impossible to every one of the citizens of the 



34 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

kingdom ; but we know that sin cannot enter 
into heaven, and it cannot stay there. We 
associate the condition of the lost with that 
hardened impiety and continuance in sin which 
Ave call permanence in evil. The lower animals 
have good or bad traits, dispositions, tempers, 
and habits ; but we do not attach any moral 
merit or demerit to their actions. 

Science searches in vain for the missing links 
which will prove the ascent of the physical 
man from the manlike ape or from sliij other 
of the mammalia. But even were such miss- 
ing forms discovered, we must find many other 
links to account for his intellectual and spirit- 
ual development. Theistic evolution demands 
the existence of God, and his activity in his 
universe. But at this point all agreement 
ends. Charles Kingsley was wise as well as 
witty when he said that evolution exalted 
God. He did not make all things, but he 
made them make themselves. Some theists 
are contented to find God at the beginning. 
They reason that we might be able to find the 
missing links between man and the ape, and 
go back hy visible steps until we came to the 
simplest forms of animal life, to find a trust- 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 35 

worthy bridge between the animal and the 
vegetable kingdoms. When we come to the 
lowest forms of organic life, let us discover that 
spontaneous generation which science has looked 
for in vain. Let the inorganic earth be simpli- 
fied, resolved into its elements, nay, let them 
disappear. In the infinite there float two 
atoms, call them microscopic atoms, molecules 
of matter, star-dust, or by any other name. 
Who made them ? Whence came they ? Who 
endowed them with the promise and potency 
of the all to come? Who ordained that in the 
infinite spaces these wandering parents of suns 
and systems should meet? Who presided at 
the wedlock that was pregnant with the all to 
come ? God. 

It is quite conceivable that the theist who 
accepts evolution of this kind and degree may 
stop short when he reaches the summit of phys- 
ical life in man, and say, " Thus far and no 
farther." The intellectual, the moral, and the 
spiritual are not to be accounted for by evolu- 
tion. The physical man began with a full 
equipment, moral and spiritual, for the battle of 
life ; and his intellect, if without the gathered 
knowledge of experience, was a man's intellect 



36 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

and not a child's. But while it is quite con- 
ceivable that the more extreme theistic evolu- 
tionists may take this position, as a matter of 
fact they accept the doctrine of evolution in 
the region of the intellectual and moral. This 
they try to accomplish without irreverence 
and without irreligion. Professor Drummond's 
"Ascent of Man" is an outstanding example 
and illustration, but we do not assert that 
Professor Drummond is a theistic evolutionist 
of the extremest kind. In the other extreme 
of theism and evolution, we have those who wil- 
lingly admit the principle of evolution in a 
general way ; but they also believe that God is 
in his world, exercising creative energy when 
and where he wills. Some are not prepared to 
grant the possibility of the physical man being 
the product of evolution ; and many deny the 
possibility of evolution accounting for the gift 
of speech, or for reason, conscience, and wor- 
ship. 

The history of the beginnings of civilization 
can never be written from a subjective stand- 
point; for races, like individuals, can neither 
remember nor chronicle their own infancy. 
The earth is dotted with the sad mementoes 



THE DIGNITY OF MAX 37 

of vanished races. Civilizations that had at- 
tained a certain height have been blotted out 
by the savage. In Mexico and in Peru the 
higher disappeared before the lower. This is 
also true of Greece and Rome so far as culture 
is concerned ; but the barbarians who overran 
Southern Europe were cleaner morally than 
were the sensualists of Rome. But not only 
does history tell us of races that have been 
overcome by the valor and virtue of an other- 
wise inferior or ruder race, we also see in our 
world of to-day, in the Indian population of 
the United States, in the natives of the South 
Sea Islands, Australia, and Xew Zealand, races 
disappearing before a civilization that has en- 
deavored in a more or less blundering way to 
be just to them, and before a Christianity 
which has given men and money freely for 
their betterment. But the treatment of the 
inferior or savage races by the conquering and 
colonizing races lias been neither wise nor just. 
We kill them before we give ourselves time to 
elevate them in the scale of civilization. Eigh- 
teen centuries ago our ancestors were naked 
or hide-clad savages, living in dugouts, or in 
huts of the rudest description. Their food was 



38 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

wild fruits, and animals caught in hunting, 
supplemented by the scantiest husbandry. 
Their religion was a bloody idolatry which de- 
manded human sacrifices. They were as low 
as Hottentot or American Indian or South 
Sea Islander of to-day. It may be affirmed 
that at this point the comparison ends. These 
rude forefathers of ours on British moors, by 
Danish shores, and in deep German woods, had 
latent capabilities very much superior to those 
of the savage races of to-day. This is simple 
assertion, nothing more. It took from six to 
nine centuries to christianize these ancestors of 
ours. It took twelve centuries to produce 
Chaucer and Wycliffe. It took fifteen centu- 
ries to produce the Reformation, Shakespeare, 
and Bacon. It has taken nineteen centuries 
to produce us of to-day. 

In the last hundred and fifty years we have 
done more in discovery and in invention, in 
physics and mechanics, than was accomplished 
in the preceding centuries of our era; but the 
Greeks were our equals from a purely intellec- 
tual standpoint, and the Christians of the first 
three centuries were our equals in excellence 
of moralit} 7 . The divine day in which nations 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 39 

are born contains more than twenty-four hours. 
The Mongolian or the Negro race may repre- 
sent the highest culture and the purest religion 
a thousand years hence ; for who can prophesy 
what the result may be when these now barba- 
rous races have had our centuries of training. 
It may also be true that special causes stereo- 
type certain races, and launch others on a 
downward career so inevitable that no help 
from without can avert their ruin. In consid- 
ering the development and decline of races, 
the " survival of the fittest " explains nothing. 
It is the mere antithesis to the death of the 
weakest. What we want to know is the 
philosophy of the causes that produce fitness 
and weakness. We are wise after the event. 
This ex post facto reasoning is interesting and 
instructive in its way. We have histories 
sacred and secular, so far as themes and modes 
of treatment are concerned, and histories of 
the church, and histories of civilization in 
abundance. It is easy to reason that the in- 
vention of the art of printing, the discovery 
of America, the decay of chivalry, the growing 
power of cities and trades' guilds as the natural 
foes of feudalism, the dispersion of Greek 



40 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

speech and Greek learning by the fall of Con- 
stantinople and other causes, had a cumulative 
force which had to result in the Reformation. 
And we talk about the times making the man, 
and the man making the times. God makes 
the man. He dowers him with the Christian 
consciousness, and the peasant priest, the mi- 
ner's son, stands before kings. It is the unex- 
pected that happens. Take the case of Italy. 
The States of the Church were badly governed. 
The rest of the country was in even a worse 
condition, with the exception of the northern 
kingdom. The country was cut up into petty 
principalities. There was no constitutional 
government. Misrule and grave oppression 
everywhere except in the north. The igno- 
rance of the masses was unspeakable. Brigand- 
age came to the gates of almost every city in 
Italy. The ancient spirit seemed dead. The 
land of Petrarch and Dante, not to mention the 
greater names of those who flourished when 
the Caesars reigned in Rome, had now become 
a by-word among the nations. There was no 
reasoning or prophesying of that breath of 
life at the mysterious touch of which Cavour, 
Garibaldi, and Victor Immanuel came forth 
to build up the united Italy of to-day. 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 41 

Take another example, nearer to English 
speakers in interest though more remote in 
time. In the middle of the eighteenth century 
a kind of moral and spiritual torpor prevailed 
in Britain and America. The Reformation was 
two hundred years old ; and the visible outcome 
of it, with the exception of an illustrious his- 
tory, was ecclesiasticism and infidelity. In Eng- 
land the lower orders of the clergy were too 
often recruited, from men who were utterly in- 
competent from a moral or a literary stand- 
point. In its more desirable livings, the church 
was, to the privileged classes, just what the 
army and navy was, — a good place for younger 
sons. Fielding, Richardson, and Smollet sup- 
plied the literature of polite society. There 
was a little more outward decency than in the 
time of the shameless vice of the period of 
the Restoration of Charles II., but gambling 
was common among both sexes in the best 
houses of the land. Bull-baiting do^-fioditino- 
and pugilism without gloves, were popular 
amusements ; and intemperance was common 
among all classes of the community. In Scot- 
land the era of moderatism prevailed. The 
pulpit was lax. Drunkenness was perhaps 



42 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

more common than in England. Conversion 
was sneered at by the greater part of the 
clergy. The voices that came from the pul- 
pits, where the heroes and martyrs of the Ref- 
ormation had thundered, were but passionless 
definition of doctrine, elegant rhetoric of the 
cool and collected kind, and a Dryasdust mo- 
rality. 

In America the Puritan fervor of New 
England had to a great extent disappeared ; 
and in its place had come an awkward aping 
of fashion, state, and ceremony, which sat clum- 
sily on men who were born to faith, but who 
had lost sight of their birthright in aping an 
unattainable culture. In the South there ex- 
isted all the religion and all the morality that 
were possible where domestic slavery prevails, 
where the mixed color tells the story of the 
white man's licentiousness, and of the colored 
woman's degradation. In the North they were 
freethinkers. In the South they were free- 
livers ; and occasionally a member of the chiv- 
alry sold his colored daughter into harlotry, 
when he was hard up, and occasionally he lost 
his offspring at a gentlemanly game of cards. 
There were illustrious exceptions. There were 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 43 

many Lots in these eighteenth century Sodoms. 
There were pious clergymen, and there were 
holy families. Purity and piety had not fled 
the earth entirely, but evil was rampant. Al- 
most simultaneously on both sides of the At- 
lantic, men who were born leaders arose to 
champion evangelical religion. Great revivals 
and the birth of modern missions, home and 
foreign, were the immediate results. 

Into one soul is born the thought that or- 
ganized missions to the heathen nations was 
the will of God and the duty of Christian 
churches, and many missions arise. Into an- 
other comes the blessed thought to send leaves 
from the Bible over the earth, like leaves from 
some tree of life, — the first Bible society is 
formed, and many follow in its train. What 
is the genesis of these movements, and of the 
men who led them, nay. who originated them. 
It is easy to be wise after the event, and to 
philosophize as to the likelihood or necessitv 
of some such movement just at such a time. 
There is a striking passage in Sir William 
Dawson's last book, " The Meeting-place of 
Geology and History," which deserves to be 
quoted as the deliberate opinion of an end- 



44 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

nent thinker, who has devoted himself dur- 
ing a long life to the study of geology, but 
who is one of the few scientists who are also 
scholarly, sympathetic, and competent archaeol- 
ogists and critics of the Bible. In chapter viii., 
the subject of which is " The Palanthropic Age 
in the Light of History," he, inter alia, dem- 
onstrates that the testimony of history and 
of geology is in favor of the arts of civiliza- 
tion originating with great inventors, that so- 
ciety has at times advanced by leaps and 
bounds, rather than by a slow uniformitarian 
process. We quote the closing sentence of 
his argument. " It is true that Genesis repre- 
sents its early inventors as mere men, albeit 
4 sons of God,' while they often appear as gods 
or demi-gods in the early history of the heathen 
nations ; but the fact remains, that then, as 
now, the rare appearance of God-given inven- 
tive genius is the sole cause of the greater 
advances in art and civilization. Spontaneous 
development may produce socialistic trades' 
unions or Chinese stagnation ; but great gifts, 
whether of prophecy, of song, of scientific in- 
sight, or of inventive power, are the inspiration 
of the Almighty." 



THE DIGNITY OF MAN 



45 



In the preceding chapter, inspiration has 
been defined as " the gift of infallibility in the 
proclamation of moral and religious truth." It 
is evident that Sir William Dawson uses the 
word in a wider sense than that of our defi- 
nition. He is in accord with the conventional 
use of the word. In this more general and 
popular sense, Shakespeare, and the first man 
who made a fire, and the first man who repre- 
sented a sound by a written character, were 
all inspired ; but in the higher sense, we con- 
fine the term inspiration to those whose words 
or thoughts came to them by the special affla- 
tus of the Spirit, so that they were infallible 
teachers. In the combination of inspiration 
and revelation the writers of the sacred Scrip- 
tures stand alone. 



46 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 



CHAPTER III 

THE DESTINY OF MAN 

The Christian consciousness knows. It lias 
moral certainty and spiritual assurance ; but it 
does not make any claim to infallibility, even 
in its own peculiar province. The Scriptures 
are infallible, but there are two serious dis- 
counts to their practical infallibility. The first 
is as to what measure of certainty we have that 
this reading is that which was penned by its 
inspired author. An unnecessary prominence 
has been given to this possibility of error 
creeping in through human fraud and careless- 
ness in translation and in transcription, by the 
prominence given to the " original autographs ' ' 
in a recent deliverance of the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian Church North in the United 
States. The second discount to the practical 
infallibility of the Scriptures as the rule of 
life arises from that diversity of interpretation 
concerning dogma and morals to Avhich we 
shall have occasion to refer in subsequent chap- 



THE DESTINY OF MAN 47 

ters. While theoretically an argument might 
be made for the infallibility of the Christian 
consciousness, the doctrine is of little or no 
practical utility. Nothing is gained by prov- 
ing the possibility of that which never occurs. 
We assume the position that the Christian con- 
sciousness is not always and necessarily infalli- 
ble. It is not inspiration in the closer definition 
of the word ; but it is inspiration, or it may be, 
of the more general kind as seen in the use of 
the word by Sir William Dawson. It often 
possesses all the joy of illumination ; but it is 
oftentimes far more than illumination. It is 
the witness of the Spirit with our spirits con- 
cerning truth. It is both the wisdom revealed 
to us and in us. It is the supreme test of 
spiritual truth. We make the expression 
" spiritually minded" do duty for many things 
to which the New Testament does not apply it. 
Very often Christian consciousness would be 
the better expression. 

When Carlyle wrote, "Nobler in this world 
know I none than a peasant saint," it was not 
because there was an} T patent of nobility at- 
tached to a combination of poverty and saint- 
liness. There would really be much more to 



48 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

wonder at, and to esteem as noble, in finding 
earnest piety combined with very great wealth, 
or with earthly positions of honor and of power. 
It could not be that the association of saintli- 
ness with husbandry conferred special honor. 
None knew better than Carlyle that the humble 
tillers of the soil of his native land were of the 
lineage of confessors, saints, and martyrs. With 
the keen insight of the seer, he saw in the 
peasant saint one whose mind was a tribunal 
to which grand moral issues came for judg- 
ment. The rustic could stand among princes, 
for he could speak the imperative yea and nay 
in life. 

The Christian consciousness puts great honor 
upon man. Christian revelation and scientific 
evolution unite in declaring that the world was 
made for man, and that man is the flower of 
all the centuries, and the lord of this visible 
creation. The end is not yet. Evolution can- 
not say that the processes of nature have 
reached their goal, and that now, or ere long, 
development is to give place to permanence. 
Evolution of the scientific kind distinctly 
repudiates this most unscientific assumption. 
Nor can evolution consistently affirm that man 



THE DESTINY OF MAN 49 

returns to dust, once more takes his place 
among elemental matter, and begins once more 
the mighty circle of life. It is as unscientific 
to suppose that evolution is a circle, as to 
suppose that it has reached, or can reach, an 
ultimate and permanent form. The more 
thoughtful evolutionists are asking the ques- 
tion, What comes next in the destiny of man? 
He watches the progress from cosmic dust to 
life in its lowest forms, hut with the origin of 
life unsolved. From primitive life to the 
higher mammals is a chain from which links 
are missing, — from the ape to man the great- 
est, most obvious missing link of all, and then 
upward from the lowest savage to the wisest 
and best men of to-day. And what shall come 
next? Surely honor is put upon man. Here 
or hereafter there must be something in store 
for him who is made a little lower than God. 

Physical science and invention and discovery 
have faith in the future. They look back but 
a century, and the many uses of electricity and 
steam are unknown. Only a hundred years 
ago, and many of those things which have be- 
come the necessities of our civilization were 
unknown. It is almost a certainty that more 



50 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

will be accomplished in the twentieth century 
than has been achieved in the nineteenth, and 
a hundred years from now they may truly 
affirm that the twentieth century has accom- 
plished more than the nineteenth accomplished. 
Social science has also her forward look. 
She sees the time when human life will be 
sweetened and lengthened by a wise hygiene ; 
when the earth will be able to support all her 
children in positive comfort; when labor and 
capital shall not conspire against each other; 
when there shall be no darkest England, or 
nihilist Russia, or anarchist America ; when 1 the 
submerged tenth shall have been elevated into 
social comfort and contentment; when the sa- 
loon and the gambling-house shall be matters 
of history ; and, above all, when the vision of 
the Hebrew seer shall be fulfilled, and men 
shall learn the art of war no more. Religion 
has her forward look. By faith's clear vision 
she sees the day when all the earth shall have 
heard the proclamation of the gospel, and when 
no man shall have to say to his neighbor, 
" Know the Lord ; " when men shall no longer 
exalt this sect or that denomination, but when 
schism shall be healed, and we shall all be one 
on earth. 



THE DESTINY OF MAN 51 

But material, social, and religious progress 
does not answer the question, " What is the next 
step in the destiny of man?" Evil may be 
diminished, though we cannot tear sin up by the 
I'oots. Many moral improvements may come 
by the cultivation of ethics, and by the develop- 
ment of social science ; but personal holiness 
may not grow in like proportion. Moral or 
spiritual growth is not necessarily aided by our 
achievements in physical science. A man who 
can cross the Atlantic in five days is not one 
whit more of a man, is not cleaner of soul 
or purer in life, is no truer to friend and lover, 
than he who had to battle with wind and 
wave for thirty days to reach his goal. Paul's 
sermon on Mai's' Hill w r ould not have been 
more sublime if he had travelled to Greece 
on a steam-}~acht. The hand that bent the 
yew bow was just as steady, and the heart 
as brave, as are his wdio handles the modern 
rifle. The telephone is a triumph of civili- 
zation, but is a doubtful ' aid to morals. 
We can suppose our social burdens lightened 
by wise legislation, our churches rejoicing in 
visible union, and the gospel proclaimed in 
all lands ; and yet open and secret sin may 



52 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

abound, even while the grossness of it and the 
volume of it may be diminished. In a cen- 
tury we may make notable progress, and yet 
the destiny of man is still unsolved. Immor- 
tality is the only solution of the problem of 
the present life. Morality demands a future in 
which the cultivation of virtue and the pursuit 
of knowledge, that have been cut off by death, 
may be resumed. Truth demands its vindica- 
tion. Justice declares that every man should 
face his record. The everlasting right beholds 
the imperfect administration of justice this side 
of the grave, and says that there must be a 
future in which wrongs shall be made right. 
All these natural, reasonable, and moral de- 
sires are part of our Christian consciousness. 
Science and religion occupy common ground 
as to the destiny of man. Science beholds him 
standing erect, the apex of creation's pyramid, 
at once the product, and the heir and the king, 
of all the ages ; and she says, " He is crowned 
with glory and honor." The Christian sees 
Him who is invisible, and says, " Thou hast 
crowned him with glory and honor." Agnos- 
ticism admits that there is as much to be said 
for theism as against it. Atheism in any form 



THE DESTINY OF MAN 53 

is a diminishing quantity. The number of 
those who admit the existence and personality 
of God, the First Cause, is steadily growing. 
To-day there are many scientific thinkers who 
are not avowedly Christian, but who are more 
theistic than agnostic. The divine Word says, 
" God made man ; " the materialist says, " Man 
made God." The Word says, " God is from 
everlasting to everlasting ; " the materialist 
says, " Matter is from everlasting to ever- 
lasting." 

The science of evolution is not materialism. 
Science is keen-eyed as far as her vision will 
carry. She sees the mighty chain of life. High- 
est of the highest, alone in the completeness 
of His glory, is the Almighty First Cause. 
There are ministering spirits round his throne ; 
but of them we are told little, and conjecture 
ever flies with broken wing. Next is man, 

— a motley group. At one end we find Wash- 
ington, Cromwell, Shakespeare, Augustine, Paul, 
John the Baptist, and Moses. With them class 
all lovers of God and of their fellow-men, 

— the virtuous poor and the unselfish rich. 
We descend through the ranks of greed and 
lust and shame, of sorrow and of sin, until 



54 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

we reach the lowest of the low in the disgust- 
ing and ingenious vice of some great cit}', or 
among those who dance in glee at the canni- 
bal feast in darkest Africa. 

But the Salvation Army goes down into the 
slum ; and this almost bestial man is clothed 
and in his right mind, living cleanly, and learn- 
ing to think cleanly. The missionary goes 
to the cannibal village ; and ere long some 
of these cannibals are transformed, and they 
pray to the unseen Father, — they know God. 
They have Christian consciousness. Science 
looks upon the manlike ape next to man in 
nature's descending scale, and sees no soul, 
no speech, no conscience, and no shame. They 
will not eat their own kind ; they are not can- 
nibals. They will fight with each other, or 
with other animals ; but there is no devilish 
ingenuity of cruelty, and no skill in torturing, 
to which western Christian civilization had 
resort, not so very long ago, and which flour- 
ishes in China to-day; but science sees divine 
possibilities in these men who to-day are in 
some respects worse than brutes, and her solemn 
verdict is, that man is nearer to God than 
he is to these apes. Nearly three thousand 



TUE DESTINY OF MAN 55 

years ago, David the poet sang the greatness 
of the Creator manifested in the greatness of 
the creature, and said, " Thou hast made man 
a little lower than God." The dream and 
the hope of the best science of to-day sit at 
the feet of this sure word of revelation. 

The destiny of man is a future of divine 
possibilities. In Eden the tempter came and 
said, " Ye shall be as God," as the Revised 
Version puts it ; but the suggested act was im- 
moral, and the result w T as fatal. It was the 
true goal by a wrong road. Sometimes the 
religious consciousness is very low. Man has 
no language of the spiritual life but a cry; 
but the cry has been for knowledge of God, 
for likeness to God. As religious culture ad- 
vances, our watchword is not so much, " Heaven 
our home," as it is, " God our Father." The 
highest aspiration of the child of God is not 
to escape a condition of loss and suffering, 
or even to gain a condition of bliss and reward, 
but it is to become like God. 

But who shall bridge the gulf between God 
and man, between humanity and divinity ? 
Here is another missing link. Hitherto the 
science of evolution has searched, and searched 



56 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

in vain very often, for the missing links in 
the ascending series of creation. But there 
are three great missing links ; and could these 
be found, every other gap is a question of de- 
tail, and might be left to time. The first miss- 
ing link is that which is between the inorganic 
and the organic, between death and life. Spon- 
taneous generation has not been proved. We 
must go back to the Word of life : " Let the 
waters bring forth ; " " Let the earth bring 
forth." The second missing link is that which 
connects the animal life of the brute with the 
soul life of man. We search in vain until 
we fall back on the divine cosmogony, and 
learn that God breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life, and man became a living soul. 
The third and last missing link is that which 
connects man with God. We cannot find it 
in physical development. Suppose that by pu- 
rity of life and knowledge of hygiene, man 
were to get back to the length of days of 
the antediluvians. This is not becoming like 
Him with whom one day is as a thousand 
years, and a thousand years as one day. He 
cannot expect to find it by any growth in 
knowledge ; for the pleasant pain of growing 



THE DESTINY OF MAN 57 

knowledge is, that each secret we wrest from 
nature reveals new regions of the unknown. 
The development of this missing link is spir- 
itual. It has to do with likeness. Man who 
has borne the image of the earthly must take 
on the image of the heavenly. How is it to be 
accomplished? There are two factors to evolu- 
tion or development of species. The first is 
the innate or inherent energy ; and the second 
is the environment, which develops the stream 
of tendency, and provides for the survival of 
the fittest. Revelation fulfils the demands of 
science. It declares that man has this innate 
or inherent energy, for he was made in the 
image of God. The second demand is fulfilled 
by Christ, who is our environment. We can 
be found in him. 

With the profoundest reverence it may be 
affirmed that at this end of the process there 
is not a missing link. It is found in Christ, 
who clasps humanity with one hand and di- 
vinity with the other. He took our humanity 
on him, that we might take his divinity on us. 
We are children and heirs with him. He is 
our elder Brother. God never gives empty 
titles. "Behold what manner of love the Father 



58 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

hath bestowed on us, that we should be called 
sons of God." 

Science, if true to evolution and development, 
must point to a development of man beyond 
his present place and power. 1 As has been said, 

1 This view is not held by Mr. Huxley. In one of his more 
recent utterances, the Romanes lecture for 1893, he says: 
"The theory of evolution encourages no millennial anticipa- 
tions. If, for millions of years, our globe has taken the 
upward road, yet some time the summit will be reached, and 
the downward route will be commenced. The most daring 
imagination will hardly venture upon the suggestion that the 
power and the intelligence of man can ever arrest the pro- 
cession of the great year. 

"It is true that science bears witness to the occurrence of 
cataclysms and catastrophes in the past; and the thing that 
has been may be again. It does not require the most daring 
imagination to picture the gradual or rapid approach of 
another glacial period, or of another period of extreme, more 
than tropical, heat. Even if bearable, they would alter the 
conditions of human life; and in that combat between the 
microcosm and the macrocosm, — that is, between the ethical 
and the cosmic force, — the cosmos would regain all the ground 
that has been-lost." All this may be granted. It does not affect 
the destiny of man. Other races of men may have preceded 
the Adamic race, but we have no more moral relation to them 
than we have to the inhabitants of Venus. We have the 
Flood in the past, concerning which the eminent scientist, Sir 
William Dawson, finds geological testimony which corroborates 
the Biblical account, and the Nineveh tablet gives archaeo- 
logical indorsement. This catastrophe was a new departure for 
the human family. In 2 Peter iii. 5-13 we have an account of 
a cataclysm to come, and modern science admits that it is 
quite possible; and this also will end the earth life of man. 
We need a future for our evolution of man. Mr. Huxley's 



THE DESTINY OF MAN 59 

physical and intellectual progress meet the 
case only in part. Science gropes after immor- 
tality; revelation declares it. John Fiske, in 
his " Destiny of Man," says that " The doctrine 
of evolution does not allow us to take the atheis- 
tic view of the position of man." Tins essay and 
its sequel, " The Idea of God," by the same 
author, deserve far more attention than they 
have received. They state with scrupulous 
honesty the progress and the limitations of 
the scientific theist ; and viewed from the stand- 
point of Christian belief they are among the 
most significant utterances of science in this 
generation. 

Science declares that man at his best is 
nearer to the divine than to the brutal, and 
it also declares that at his worst he has the 
inherent power to rise to his best. Revelation 
declares that God has made him but little less 
than God, and lias crowned him with glory 
and honor. Science demands efficient causes 
for phenomena. Revelation points to the ori- 
ginal God image, and then to Him who was 
at once the Son of God and the Son of man. 

view is in accord with the testimony of revelation to the past, 
and also to the future, of the earth. 



60 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

The destiny of the brute is beyond and outside 
of any volition or plan on its part. Man's des- 
tiny, in a very important sense, is in his own 
hands. There is a royal road to his highest 
development. It is by Him who is the way. 

Christianity asserts the dignity of man. 
It declares that a believer has been born 
again by an incorruptible seed, hy a living 
and abiding ever-continuing word of God. He 
is in present possession of eternal life. Is not 
Christian consciousness natural and to be ex- 
pected? Would it not be strange if this son 
and heir should be so estranged from his Father- 
that there was no sympathetic knowledge be- 
tween them? The unused power shrinks, 
shrivels, and weakens. This is true in the 
physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual. 
Is our Christian consciousness atrophied by 
disuse ? 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 61 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 

The consideration of the influence that the 
Christian consciousness has upon the develop- 
ment or evolution of morals, ethics, and doc- 
trine, is to a certain extent influenced by the 
use which has already been made of it. As 
has been stated in the first chapter, Schleier- 
macher's position is, that religion consists 
properly in feeling. This is with him a fun- 
damental principle. But those who reject 
the sensationalism of Schleiermacher will nat- 
urally be led to reject his assertion that we 
have an immediate consciousness of the di- 
vine, — a God consciousness. The attempt of 
the Ritchslian school to reconcile supranat- 
uralism and rationalism is the chivalry of dog- 
matics when looked at from one point of 
view ; but when the inspiration of Scripture 
is yielded as a lost cause, so far as its pres- 
ent lines of defence are concerned, only to 
be rescued by the Christian consciousness, or- 



02 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

thodoxy naturally and properly takes alarm, and 
of course regards with suspicion the Chris- 
tian consciousness which rescues the doctrine 
that ought not to have been abandoned. 

In the Andover Review of October, 1884, 
there appeared a paper by Professor George 
Harris, entitled, " The Function of the Chris- 
tian Consciousness." This article was a de- 
fence of, and a plea for, the so-called Andover 
theology, which for various reasons, into which 
it is not the province of the present work 
to go, was much more prominently before the 
public then than it is now. The points which 
Professor Harris makes and elaborates are : — 

I. " The Christian consciousness gives cer- 
tainty to the individual concerning the truth 
of Christianity." 

II. " Another exercise of the function of the 
Christian consciousness is the progressive devel- 
opment of theology." 

III. " The relation of Christian conscious- 
ness to the Bible." 

It was natural, and to be expected, that in 
the then active stage of this particular phase 
of the controversy, criticism of this article was 
at once prompt and general. Dr. Francis Pat- 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 63 

ton criticised it in the Independent ; and it is 
scarcely necessary to add that it was keenly 
and trenchantly done. The Rev. Dr. Behrends, 
in the Conyreijationalist, also appeared as the 
champion of orthodoxy as opposed to the 
newer school at Andover. Their contention 
and their fear was that the supreme authority 
of the Scriptures was endangered by the func- 
tions ascribed to the Christian consciousness 
by Professor Harris. Nor were they without 
reason for their assertion, for the third divis- 
ion of the paper in question is lacking in 
precision of statement. The general impres- 
sion which the reader who tries to follow the 
discussion with all possible judicial candor 
receives, is that Professor Harris used the 
"Christian consciousness" to support Andover 
theology, and that the critics who have been 
named, as well as others, were prejudiced 
against the doctrine of Christian conscious- 
ness because of the use to which it had been 
put. There is no need for alarm. The Chris- 
tian consciousness of the individual is from 
God. The collective Christian consciousness 
of the church is from God. Our philosophy 
of consciousness is put in various forms by 



64 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

different schools. Christian consciousness will 
be the subject of debate as to mode of origin, 
essence, and functions, just as inspiration or 
conscience is ; but the individual or the church 
that wills to do the will of God can never 
be led by the Christian consciousness into rad- 
ical error of doctrine or of conduct. 

What is our standard of Scripture interpre- 
tation ? The Roman Catholic says, My stan- 
dard is the church. I can rest in blessed 
satisfaction. The church tells me what to 
believe and what to do. The great councils 
have issued their decrees. Emergencies may 
arise, but the official head of the church is 
officially infallible. He thinks he has not 
much need for the Christian consciousness ; 
but his child dies after a few struggling mo- 
ments of life. In the hurry and excitement 
of the moment the sacrament of baptism has 
been neglected. This tiny -morsel of mortal- 
ity, this unbaptized babe, is to suffer eternal 
deprivation and disqualification because of this ; 
and when he and the mother and the other 
more fortunate children are safely gathered on 
the other side, this frailest blossom of the par- 
ent tree is to be banished eternally. Chris- 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 05 

tian consciousness rebels and doubts, and hopes 
against hope, and finally believes better than 
the church's creed. In these more enlightened 
times Roman Catholics have so many opportu- 
nities of taking knowledge of the Christlike 
lives of some of their Protestant friends, that 
the doctrine concerning the damnation of here- 
tics has undergone a modifying process. The 
Christian consciousness demanded it. 

Protestant denominations may be said to as- 
sert that their standard of Scripture interpre- 
tation is neither church nor creed nor teacher. 
Each and every one is to search the Scriptures. 
What do I think about Christ? The Scrip- 
tures testify of him. The duty which God 
requires of man is obedience to his revealed 
will ; and the Word of God is the only rule 
to direct us. Theoretically this sounds beau- 
tiful, and savors of a large freedom ; but the 
Protestant sometimes finds that his denomina- 
tion is a close corporatipn. The Confessional 
symbols interpret the Scriptures, and the Gen- 
eral Assembly or the Conference or the Asso- 
ciation interprets the Confessional symbols ; and 
these interpretations, which determine who are 
orthodox, who need discipline, . and who de- 



06 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

serve expulsion, are the voice of a majority, 
great or small, — a majority swayed by the 
heat of debate, the chronic rivalry of individ- 
uals and of parties, by the bitterness of po- 
litical strife, or by the pecuniary interests 
involved, and often by the avowed determina- 
tion to ignore the Christian consciousness as a 
dangerous and misleading factor. It is easy to 
reply to this, that it magnifies the admixture 
of error and human frailty which inheres in 
all man's work, but that these deliberations 
and decisions are reached by godly men, who 
believe in, and have prayed for, the Spirit's pres- 
ence and power. Most gladly is all this con- 
ceded ; but history is history, and the tyranny 
of overbearing majorities is only equalled by 
the divisive courses of stubborn minorities. 
In much of our ecclesiastical business and doc- 
trinal controversy Ave almost expect to find 
men stubborn when they are in the right, and 
sublimely obstinate .when they are in the 
wrong. It is no argument in favor of a con- 
dition of things to say that it has always 
been so ; and to say that the thing that has 
always been is the will of God is a mixture of 
blasphemy and of fatalism. Surely there can 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS G7 

be a better way. The consideration of what 
the Christian consciousness has accomplished 
will give hope concerning the future. It is 
desirable to enter upon this investigation with 
the spirit of true philosophic inquiry. We 
are not immediately concerned with the re- 
lation which the Christian consciousness bears 
to this doctrine or to that. The outcome may 
be for or against this creed or that denomina- 
tion. It may help, or it may antagonize, the 
new theology or the higher criticism, or it 
may have no effect on either of those phases 
of doctrine. 

It is also desirable to bear in mind that 
the common Christian consciousness is that con- 
sensus concerning doctrine, morals, or ethics 
which is held by each and every Christian. 
While this is the strict definition, we usually 
call that the common Christian consciousness 
which is the common or predominant thought 
of the followers of Christ. It is self-evident, 
that, while the consensus of a bare majority 
or of a considerable minority may be regarded 
as a form or phase of Christian consciousness, 
we cannot regard it as being the Christian con- 
sciousness concerning the point in question. 



68 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

The genuineness and authority of Christian 
consciousness cannot be settled by a majority 
vote. 

It is desirable to consider the relation of 
the Christian consciousness to the evolution 
or development of morals and ethics, apart 
from its relation to the development or evo- 
lution of doctrine. What is meant by the 
expression? Is there such a law in nature as 

THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS? 

Evolution accounts for the growth of the 
intellectual and moral as well as for the 
physical man. Herbert Spencer, in his illus- 
trations of universal progress, says, " Little 
as from present appearance we should suppose 
it, we shall yet find that at first the control 
of religion, the control of laws, and the con- 
trol of manners, were all one control. How- 
ever incredible it may now seem, we believe 
it to be demonstrable that the rules of eti- 
quette, the provisions of the statute book, and 
the commands of the Decalogue, have grown 
from the same root." Now, the very doctrine 
which Mr. Spencer introduces with the un- 
avoidable conscious self-importance of even a 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS G9 

modest discoverer, and tells us how incredible 
it may seem, is exactly the belief of many 
earnest Christians. Manners, law, and morals 
have grown from the same root, have been 
bruised by rough handling, their kinship is 
becoming more and more apparent. In well- 
ordered Christian families, " law, religion, and 
morals " do spring from the same root. In 
this lies our hope that the state and the 
world will yet more and more resemble a 
holy family. Mr. Spencer evidently takes 
no small amount of satisfaction in discover- 
ing three fruits from one root. We, too, are 
satisfied, but not quite so much amazed as lie 
is, for the Tree of Life has twelve manner 
of fruits. In sympathy with the position of 
Herbert Spencer, George Henry Lewes, in his 
" Problems in Life and Mind," says, " The great 
desire at this age is for a doctrine which may 
serve to condense our knowledge, guide our 
researches, and shape our lives, so that con- 
duct may be the result of belief." Mr. Lewes 
saw no hope of getting such a doctrine from 
revealed religion. His hope was in a "religion 
founded on science." The Christian philos- 
opher maintains that the Scriptures unfold 



70 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

such a doctrine ; and Christian philosophy goes 
deeper than this distinguished doubter's, for 
it declares that love keeps the commandments, 
and he that wills to do His will knows the 
supranatural excellence of the doctrine. 

The history of civilization and the history 
of morals form one great theme. Guizot, 
Buckle, and Lecky have the same story to 
tell, however different their motives and their 
manner of telling may be. It is, of course, 
with the development of morals in the Chris- 
tian era that we are concerned. We have 
not to establish or prove the fact of this devel- 
opment. It is universally granted. In civil 
and religious liberty, in the amelioration of 
the penal code, in our thoughts regarding, 
and our treatment of, such questions as witch- 
craft, slavery, foreign missions, and temper- 
ance, we recognize the fact that great changes 
have occurred, and that great advances have 
been made. It is not so long ago that the 
slave-ship was carrying on a legitimate busi- 
ness, and that slavery was a most Christian 
institution. The clergymen of a hundred years 
ago had not begun to doubt the propriety of 
the habitual use of intoxicating liquors. We 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 71 

see more clearly than they did, and we won- 
der at the witch-burning, and the reckless, if 
legal, killing of men for so many crimes. We 
are able to look forward to the time when 
we shall have overcome many of the evils, 
and shall have got rid of many of the burdens, 
of our present social system. While the fact 
of development in morals is granted, the 
greatest diversity exists as to the cause or 
causes of man's progress. Long before there 
was any evolution theory with regard to phys- 
ical life, evolution theories in morals were 
not only promulgated, but were also received 
with little question. Not until these theories 
were pushed to their legitimate conclusions 
was the alarm taken. The vague term ex- 
perience was credited with all theoretical and 
practical progress in ethics. Scholars got into 
the habit of speaking of the inductive method 
as being the true and only cause of all prog- 
ress in moral as well as in physical science. 
Many scientists scouted the bare idea of a 
superintending, adjusting, or interfering Prov- 
idence finding anything to do in the physical 
universe of to-day ; and, by an easy transition, 
they also refused to believe in a divine moral 



72 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

government and governor. But the moving 
of God out of his universe, either by denying 
his existence, or by removing him to the 
infinite height and solitude of the Great First 
Cause, that did not in any way shape or 
interfere with the destiny of man, did not 
solve the difficulty. What is the philosophy of, 
the key to, the satisfactory explanation of that 
human progress which we commonly term the 
process of civilization or development in morals ? 
Utilitarianism was credited with much devel- 
oping power. We are told in the Bible that 
on a certain occasion when good men were 
assembled, Satan appeared also, 1 as indeed he 
usually does. He was confronted with the 
problem of accounting for virtue and for moral 
and spiritual excellence ; and his reply was, 
" Doth Job fear God for naught ? " He is the 
first and greatest of the utilitarians ; and to-day 
we have the sneer about " worldliness and other- 
worlclliness." The world did not require to 
wait for some revealed word of reply to this 
ingenious theory that virtue was begotten of 
selfishness, and that morality was a kind of 
insurance against wrath to come, whether in 
i Job i. 6. 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 73 

this or in some future state of existence. In 
his " Republic " occurs Plato's well-known crit- 
icism of Homer; and one fault which the great 
philosopher finds with the grand poet is that 
he recommends justice by the inducement of 
temporal rewards, and thus turns morality into 
prudence. In passing, let it be said that it was 
a delicately adjusted religious consciousness 
which scorned the idea of morality having no 
higher inspiration than prudence. He could 
discern with clearness many of what Sir James 
Mackintosh, in his " Progress of Ethical Phi- 
losophy," calls the "august and sacred land- 
marks that stand conspicuous along the frontier 
between right and wrong." Mr. Lecky affirms 
that utilitarianism leads to conclusions utterly 
and outrageously repugnant to the moral feel- 
ings. Here he stands with Plato against the 
arch enemy ; but when he claims that general 
moral principles are revealed by intuition, are 
progressive, and that theological influences re- 
tard philosophical truth, we are not so sure as to 
what side he is on. Buckle's tests of growing 
civilization are the absence of persecution for 
religious opinion, and not. going to Avar; but we 
naturally ask whether these so-called tests are 



74 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

the causes or effects of civilization, or are they 
not more properly to be regarded as parts of 
civilization or of morality ? Buckle gives su- 
premacy to the intellect, but Comte to the 
heart. There is much that is attractive in the 
religion of humanity which we can learn from, 
without worshipping humanity. 

The " struggle for existence " is not as new a 
thought in social as it is in physical science. 
Hesiod said that society was constructed on a 
basis of competition ; that a principle of strife 
which makes potter foe to potter, produces all 
honorable enterprise. Physical progress is se- 
cured by the destruction of unsuitable forms, 
their weeding out, and by the cultivation of the 
successful ; that is, by the survival of the fittest. 
Nature wants nothing but a fair field and free 
play for the strongest. Trade is competition, 
a struggle for existence. The survival of the 
sharpest is not always the survival of the fittest, 
from the moral, or even from the ethical, stand- 
point. Moral evolution demands a fair field 
and fair play for the weakest. It do^s not 
break the bruised reed. The Christian sociol- 
ogy of to-day, as a philosophy, is empiric simply 
because ethical science is so vague ; but in many 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 75 

of the practical outcomes of it, such as the in- 
stitutional church, college residences among the 
lowly, and the rescue work of the Salvation 
Army, it is saved from all nomenclature by be- 
ing the imitation of Christ, who from the stand- 
point of even those who deny his divinity, was 
the greatest, most radical, and most far-reach- 
ing reformer that has ever appeared on earth. 
F. D. Maurice's " Social Molality " created 
a good deal of interest when the lectures were 
delivered and afterwards published. It has his- 
torical insight and elevated moral sentiment, 
and a generous enthusiasm for virtue; but the 
questions at issue now were not on the field of 
discussion when he wrote. He cannot escape 
the environment of Oxford and of the State 
Church. He goes out of his way to make a 
plea for aristocracy and for a hereditary legisla- 
ture. He sees advantage in the inheritance of 
patrician and plebeian, and with proud humility 
writes himself a plebeian. Of course not a few 
of his audience were self-complacent juvenile 
patricians. We are not so much concerned 
about whether the individual or the family 
constitutes the unit of social life, as to how 
social life is to be developed in the unit and in 



76 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

the family. Hume remarks that " the princi- 
ples upon which men reason in morals are 
always the same, though the conclusions which 
they draw are often very different." This was 
true in Hume's time ; it is not the case now. 

The systems of moral philosophy had to ac- 
count for the developments of virtue and of vice, 
but it was largely done as an abstract science. 
The metaphysicians and the moralists dissected 
the mind as anatomists dissected the body. 
They had their vivisection too, but it consisted 
chiefly in the relish with which rival schools 
cut each other up. The political economists 
imparted a human interest to moral philosophy 
which it did not before possess. Biology 
opened a new and very productive field in 
the study of man, morally and intellectually as 
well as physically. The comparatively new 
science of sociolog}- was a study of moral and 
physical conditions, and it was also an active 
effort to remedy and to help. The philosopher 
in his study can tell us a great deal about the 
moral nature of man ; but the study of the 
living organism Society by the man who works 
in college settlement, or in people's palace, or in 
some Salvation Army rescue work, gives oppor- 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 77 

tunities of studying problems in life and mind 
and morals in concrete fashion. Those men 
who are combining culture with practical study 
of social conditions, and with practical efforts 
to help and to elevate, know that their work 
is of unusual significance in these days of 
communism, socialism, unrest, and discontent. 
Bellamy and his followers and imitators dream 
of a social future. Novelists weave their plots 
round the ways and means adapted to take 
some moral, intellectual, and social sunshine 
into darkest England. Slumming becomes a 
virtuous rage. Altruria becomes a country ; 
and altruism, instead of being almost a philo- 
sophical term, becomes almost a household 
word. The active help was not the only manner 
in which the quickened social sympathy mani- 
fested itself. In the past, when a strike took 
place the general public looked on and grum- 
bled when their own comfort was interfered 
with; but the general feeling was expressed by 
the words, tk Let them fight it out." When the 
discontent became riotous, rebellious, and revo- 
lutionary, the policy was to give the dog a bone 
if you were not able to knock him on the head. 
Now all is being changed. Courts of arbitration 



78 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

are being discussed. Trades unions and or- 
ganized labor generally are treated with respect. 
When a strike takes place, the right and the 
wrong of it are vigorously discussed. Eminent 
clergymen win the applause of all when they 
are the successful peacemakers. As is usually 
the case when mone} r has to be raised and ser- 
vice rendered, much of the work, almost all 
of it, in fact, which looked to the better under- 
standing of the miserable, and to their better- 
ment in a permanent fashion, was done by the 
churches or by professedly Christian people. 
The evolution of ethics and morals had been 
expounded by non-Christian evolutionists. Ma- 
terialist, positivist, agnostic, and humanitarian 
had all had their say ; but the actual was, 
meanwhile, being done, not by the followers 
of these various schools, but by Christians, by 
the churches, by ladies living among the lowly, 
by scholarly young men from universities and 
theological seminaries, and by the soldiers, male 
and female, of the Salvation Army. It was 
high time that the evolution of morals should 
be treated from the point of view which reli- 
gion supplies. Benjamin Kidd's able work on 
"Social Evolution" has attracted much atten- 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 79 

tion. It has the merit of being so clear in its 
reasoning, and so lucid in its language, that it 
has already secured a wider audience than, as 
a rule, has been Avon by works of its class. It 
has been keenly criticised; but hitherto its prin- 
cipal positions have not been successfully as- 
sailed. He maintains that our civilization is 
founded upon an ultra-rational system of ethics. 
He bears repeated testimony to this immense 
fund of altruistic feeling. But, though he does 
not say it in so many words, the ultra-rational 
that makes for righteousness manifested by 
self-surrender must be inspired. The writer is 
in hearty sympathy and cordial agreement with 
almost all Mr. Kidd's argument ; for his book 
has the merit of beings an unbroken and well- 
sustained argument. That which it is the aim 
of this book to prove to be the law of the evo- 
lution in morals in relation to the Christian 
consciousness is not inconsistent with his theory 
of social evolution. 

It is interesting that Professor Drummond's 
"Ascent of Man" should be almost contempo- 
rary with Mr. Kidd's " Social Evolution." This 
work has been severely criticised by the scien- 
tists, who are not satisfied with its Christian 



80 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

spirit; and it has been even more severely 
handled by Christian, critics, because of alleged 
shortcomings. But meanwhile it has the win- 
ning manner of putting things which has made 
Professor Drummond so popular, and good 
people who read it are not hurt by it. His 
scheme of the development of morals appears at 
first sight antagonistic to Mr. Kidd's ; but they 
are not really so very much opposed. The 
author of " Social Evolution" is not so much 
concerned about the genesis of the moral idea, 
as with the fact that religion has moral sanc- 
tions to spare, and that she does leaven society 
with these ultra-rational moral sanctions. Reli- 
gion can give only that which is in the hearts 
of its votaries; not in the heart of each one, 
or in the hearts of all, but the predominant 
thought and feeling. His altruistic fund can 
never rise above the level of the Christian con- 
sciousness ; or, since he avoids the term Chris- 
tian, let us put it that his altruism, his 
ultra-rationalism of morality, is the manifesta- 
tion of the religious consciousness. It may at 
first sight seem a contradiction ; but perhaps the 
best way of indicating the relation of these fa- 
mous books to each other is to note that there is 



THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 81 

some reason for Professor Drummond taking ex- 
ception to some of Mr. Kidd's views, but there 
is no reason for which Mr. Kidd should oppose 
Professor Drummond's book in the interest of 
his own " Social Evolution." 



THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 



CHAPTER V 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 

The study of the evolution of morals is fa- 
cilitated by taking some particular instance and 
example. We take human slavery because it 
has been universal, and, so far as civilization is 
concerned, it has passed into history. It is now 
a problem in ethics and in morals. In the earli- 
est civilization, there were slaves of every kind. 
Sometimes the slavery was that of subject peo- 
ples engaged on great public works, or that of 
races laboring under the burden of a tribute of 
such exorbitant extent that they were slaves 
indeed to their conquerors ; or it was domestic 
servitude. The slaves of the ancient world 
were not confined to that one race so much 
identified with slavery in modern times, but 
were captives taken in battle, purchased slaves, 
and the children of slaves, who inherited the 
bondage of their parents. When the condition 
of the slave Avas favorable, or even happy, it 
was because his owner Avas kind or indifferent, 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 83 

and not because lie was protected by humane 
legislation. In the dawn of history the laws 
were made for freemen, and the servile class 
were wholly at the mercy of irresponsible own- 
ers. When laws began to be made, with regard 
to slaves, they indicate the unspeakable cruelty 
which preceded them. It was enacted that it 
would be wrong for a master to put his slave to 
death without securing legal permission, but 
that if he happened to kill a slave' when chastis- 
ing him, he was to be held innocent. When a 
slave became sick, and in order not to be put 
to the trouble of caring for him, he publicly 
abandoned him, and the slave recovered, the 
master could not claim him again. These laws 
show how miserable the condition of the slave 
was. Christianity did not do much to improve 
the condition of the slave, and the little that 
was done was accomplished very slowl}\ The 
serfdom of Europe was a modified form of 
bondage, and in the feudal system the mass of 
their retainers were the practical slaves of the 
barons. Liberty came slowly, not so much 
from servile insurrection, as from the growth of 
cities and the freemen sheltered by their walls, 
and from the power that the yeomen learned 



84 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

that they possessed when princes fought, or 
barons were arrayed against the king, and the 
king against his barons. 

When slavery came to an end in Europe, it 
was from natural causes. Neither church nor 
state had any convictions on the question. No 
moral issue was raised ; and almost immediately 
the pious and the thrifty, as well as the adven- 
turer and the vagabond, became interested in 
the slave-trade to the colonies beyond the seas. 
Nor were negroes from Africa the only victims. 
In November, 1648, a contemporary authority 
tells this story : " The two charitable mer- 
chants that have bought four hundred Chris- 
tians to send beyond the sea for slaves, were 
brought before the House of Lords, to show by 
what authority they were to transport them, 
who, upon examination, produced an order of 
the House of Commons, and being demanded 
what qualities they were of, they answered that 
they were all common soldiers and Scots, not 
one Englishman among them ; then says one, 
it will be enough : they are as much slaves as 
ever they can be. Rut what ! Have they sold 
none away but Scots? How many hundred 
poor apprentices of London have they sold per- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 85 

petual slaves to the Turks, or sent to planta- 
tions where they shall not be half so well used 
as are here our horses and oxen ! " There is a 
vein of sarcasm in this contemporary account of 
the doings of this famous Parliament. It goes 
on to tell that these white slaves being only 
Scots, and the Lords, not knowing but that 
the Commons would sell them next, leave was 
granted. Just before attending to the specula- 
tion of these enterprising merchants, the Com- 
mons sent a message to the Lords, desiring 
their concurrence in sending the Catechism of 
the Westminster Assembly to the king at Car- 
isbrooke Castle. 

This was the Parliament which defeated the 
king, who in a few months w r as to be executed. 
It was altogether in control of Puritans, Inde- 
pendents, and Presbyterians. Need Ave be sur- 
prised at the readiness with which the American 
colonists in New England and in Virginia ac- 
cepted slavery as a part of their social system ? 
This Parliament, containing many men of emi- 
nent piety, and composed almost wholly of those 
who had ventured their lives in this successful 
struggle for civil liberty and for religious free- 
dom, is not troubled at all about the abstract 



86 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

morality of slavery ; but it was scarcely fair to 
sell London apprentices into slavery, because 
these apprentices were their own kith and. kin. 
As for those common soldiers and Scots, who 
had been fighting on the wrong side, that was 
another question. 

John Bacon of Barnstable, Mass., died in 
1731, leaving a " negro wench," Dinah, as a 
chattel to be disposed of by will ; and this will 
was to the effect that Dinah should be sold, and 
the proceeds of the sale were to be devoted to 
the purchase of Bibles. This in New England ! 
And in old England good men gave God thanks 
for the successful ventures of their slave-ships 
on the African coasts. We smile at these inci- 
dents, and marvel at the moral obtuseness which 
they indicate ; but not so great a blot is this on 
the eighteenth century as is the taxation of har- 
lots and of sellers of strong drink in the nine- 
teenth century. A late senator from Illinois 
introduced a bill to legalize the education of 
children by the profits of the liquor traffic. 
Moses was not a slave, but he was of a nation 
of slaves, whose freedom lie secured ; and we do 
not know that he had any theoretic objections 
to slavery as a system, and yet his statutes de- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 87 

cree that the price of a dog or the wages of sin 
were not to go into the Lord's treasury. His 
aesthetics are as remarkable as are his ethics. 

There was a time when slavery was con- 
sidered right by the Christian churches, and 
by Christians as individuals. We can imagine 
that the degradation of use and wont made 
the slaves themselves acquiesce in the state of 
tilings. Even on moral grounds the man who 
is a slave cannot bemoan the radical injustice of 
his lot, so long as he, without scruple, would 
enslave the enslaver if he had the upper hand. 
Every student of history and of the Bible 
knows that there was a time when, humanly 
speaking, slavery in and of itself was not op- 
posed to human c" even to divine legislation. 
Just as certainly as there was a time when 
every body thought that slavery was right, 
just as certainly there came a supreme moment 
when there came to some soul the truth that 
slavery WAS WRONG. And of course the 
tiling that is morally wrong cannot prove a per- 
manent advantage to the state, to society, or to 
the individual. Now, the question is, How came 
this new thought into the world ? What is the 
genesis of it ? It may be, and it is frequently 



88 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

replied, " This is the result of evolution in 
morals. It comes from observation and expe- 
rience." Mr. Kidd tells us that the altruism 
with which society was equipped by religion, 
the ultra-rational morality, was the axe that 
was laid at the root of the tree of slavery. 
Professor Drummoncl exalts the evolution of 
love, and self-sacrifice for love's sake, and this 
provided the altruistic feeling before which 
slavery was doomed. 

It may be granted that the development or 
evolution theories of these two eminent think- 
ers, as well as the theories that have been ad- 
vanced by Huxley, Spencer, and others, account 
satisfactorily for the gradual amelioration of 
the condition of the slave ; but they do not 
account for the reversal of the world's thought. 
To own a slave is right; to own a slave is 
wrong. This is a new thing in morals. Spon- 
taneous generation in morals is just as unthink- 
able as is spontaneous generation in matter. It 
has been the custom, both in and out of the 
pulpit, to compare the advances in morals with 
those discoveries and inventions which are pro- 
ducing such constant change upon the life of 
man. The changes in the outward life are not 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 89 

without their reflex action upon the inner life. 
There is a superficial reasonableness in such 
comparisons. The discovery is the finding of 
the treasure which has been lying in the lap of 
nature, waiting the appropriating hand of man ; 
and the invention is the combination and ad- 
justment of existing principles or laws to pro- 
duce a new result. We may call the new thing 
in morals a discovery, and declare that it has 
always been lying in the nature of things, and 
in the revealed Word, waiting for the eyes that 
were yet to see it ; or we may call it an inven- 
tion, and affirm that it is in harmony with that 
law from Heaven for life on earth, to which as 
to a divine measure we bring it. There is, 
however, an essential difference. It is one thing 
to discover or to invent in the physical, to detect 
the law, or to combine the laws to produce a 
new result, and quite another thing to discover 
or to invent, if such terms are admissible, the 
truth which is a direct and emphatic reversal of 
the truth which has been accepted in all time as 
in harmony with morality as a science. And 
this holds true whether or not our system of 
morality acknowledges the Word of God as its 
ultimate standard. 



90 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

We do not know who was the first to utter 
this new truth. We do not know that he was 
in a position to reason from observation and 
experience. It may be maintained that abstract 
reasoning on theoretic justice, excited by the 
recital of experience on the part of others, or by 
witnessing the evils of slavery, might be the 
producing cause. Is it not nevertheless true 
that the Christian consciousness, the divinity 
in the man, is the womb, the theatre of the ges- 
tation time of this new birth of truth ? Like the 
Christ of extraordinary parentage, both human 
and divine, it is a fountain-head of good. This 
new thing in morals is not wholly made of 
things that do appear. 

• Who was the father of this truth ? 1 Who 
can tell ? It may be asked why those whose 
names and memories are forgotten should be 
chosen as the authors of great truths? We do 
not know. We have not yet mastered the prin- 

1 It may be claimed that moral births are the begotten of 
the times, and not of the individual. This is really no objec- 
tion. In the moral universe there must always be " A fulness 
of time." The Christ has a forerunner, and disciples who ac- 
company and follow him. That a new truth in morals should 
be revealed simultaneously in widely separated localities does 
not disprove its revelation, but a case of simultaneous revela- 
tion has not yet been proved." 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 91 

ciples of divine selection and election. We do 
not know for what reason Mary was chosen as 
the mother of our Lord. We do not know what 
was the nature or measure of the fitness that 
Christ saw in each of the Twelve. Before Wil- 
berforce, Clarkson, and Garrison, are Anthony 
Benezet, William Dellwyn, and Granville Sharp. 
Before them are more obscure names. 

Samuel Sewall seems to have been the first in 
America to denounce slaveiy and the laws 
against witchcraft. He was born in England, 
1652, and died in New England, 1730. In 1692 
lie gave his official sanction to the punishment 
of witchcraft ; but five years afterwards he ac- 
knowledged his error. In 1700 lie published a 
pamphlet, " The Selling of Joseph," in which he 
sa} r s that there could be " no progress in gos- 
pelling " until slavery was abolished. There 
are two points deserving attention in this case. 
11 le bondage of penal servitude made slaves of 
white men in the colonies at this time, and their 
servitude excited a consideration and compas- 
sion which would not be as readily given to an 
alien race like the negro. We can easily ima- 
gine that had the mixture of races been impossi- 
ble on this continent, the slavery of the black 



92 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

race might have continued for a longer time be- 
fore its final overthrow. The English people of 
1G48 had much more tender regard for London 
apprentices than they had for common soldiers 
and Scots. When quadroons and octoroons, 
and even those in whom the African taint was 
even still more attenuated, had to follow the 
mother's fate, the moral offence became more 
rank. It " smelled to heaven." 

It is also of special significance to note that 
Samuel Sewall was just the man in whom we 
would expect a development of the Christian 
consciousness. Scholarly, refined, and pious, 
he used his great wealth in the doing of good. 
He fell into the prevalent error regarding the 
legal punishment of witchcraft ; but when light 
came to him he publicly confessed his error. 
It will be admitted by all, that we have in him 
a man who willed to do the will of God. Why 
should not he be the man chosen to know the 
teaching on this matter ? To be sure, he was 
only a voice crying in the wilderness, but the 
voice was the result of a divine persuasion and 
conviction. From 1700 to the day when Lin- 
coln issued his famous proclamation of inde- 
pendence and freedom for the slave, was a long 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAV Eli Y 93 

time. Nay, it was a long time from 1700 to 
1792, when the first legal action in the direction 
of manumission was attempted in the country 
that was the first to free its slaves; but there 
was an unbroken chain of causation, although 
we may not be able to trace its sequence link 
after link. 

Who were the predecessors of Samuel Sewall 
in holding this opinion that slavery was wrong, 
even though they were not moved to proclaim it 
to all the world ? or into how many hearts did 
questions and doubts come as to the abstract 
right and wrong of it? Who can tell? We 
must beware of the easy and unphilosophical 
talk about the thing that is right in one age 
being wrong in another. Slavery was just as 
much a wrong in Abraham's time as was polyg- 
amy ; but Abraham was not morally guilty, 
although he was a slaveholder and a polyga- 
mist. The existence of wrong is one thing, 
and the innocence of ignorant wrong-doing is 
quite another thing. We can trace the stream 
far back, but its living source we cannot find. 
Aristotle affirmed that slavery was part of the 
law of nature, but he admitted that some of his 
contemporaries denied this. But their denying 



91 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

that it was part of the law of nature does not 
prove that they regarded slavery as being im- 
moral. 1 

It was not until 1792 that a bill was intro- 
duced into the British House of Commons, 
which had for its aim the gradual extinction of 
slavery; and forty-two years elapsed before its 
final extinction in Great Britain. In 1794 the 
French Convention decreed that all slaves in 
French territory should be free ; and fifty -four 
years afterwards slavery was finally abolished 
in the dominions of France. Slavery was not 
entirely abolished in the Dutch colonies until 
1863. The United States has a unique place 
with regard to slavery, which is worthy of spe- 
cial attention in the study of moral science, and 
also in the relation of the church to moral 
problems. When the agitation against this evil 
was active in England and in France, the senti- 
ment against it in the United States was strong 
and full of hope. Washington declared that 
there was not a man living who wished more 
sincerely than he did to see a plan adopted for 
abolishing slavery, and he showed his sincerity 
to the end by leaving the great body of his 
1 See note on page 90. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY ( .>.~> 

slaves free. Jefferson was a slaveholder, and 
as early as 1774 he said, "The abolition of 
domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire 
in these colonies." It was he who proposed a 
constitution for Virginia, in terms of which 
all born after the year 1800 were to be free. 
Monroe's testimony was that shivery had 
k * proved prejudicial to all the States in which 
it existed." Patrick Henry thus puts himself 
on record : " It would rejoice my soul that every 
one of these, my fellow-beiugs, was emanci- 
pated. . . . We detest slavery ; we feel its fatal 
effect ; we deplore it with all the earnestness 
of humanity." These are not the sentiments of 
Northern men, but of Southern men ; and need 
it be added, that these opinions of their great- 
est men were echoed and indorsed by many 
of lesser name than they. After .listening to 
these voices, would not any student of history 
have been justified in coming to the conclu- 
sion that slavery in the great Republic was 
doomed. Slavery was an evil inheritance from 
colonial times. The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence opened with a ringing sentiment as to the 
freedom and equality of men, and the posses- 
sion by all of inalienable rights and privileges. 



96 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

It was now a question of ways and means; but 
the doing away of slavery was a foregone con- 
clusion. Years of marvellous prosperity fol- 
lowed. The young Republic became the great 
Republic; but slavery remained, and the num- 
ber of the servile population increased rapidly. 
The immorality associated with domestic servi- 
tude was inevitable ; and as the child followed 
the class, or rather remained in the class, of the 
mother, the strange spectacle was witnessed of 
men and women who were three-fourths, seven- 
eighths, and even fifteen-sixteenths, white blood, 
being bought and sold as merchandise. 

More than half a century of religious activity 
followed aloncr with this strange condition of 
affairs, and we had religious denominations that 
gloried in their orthodoxy and in their conser- 
vatism, and. a society that was sensitive and 
punctilious on the score of personal honor. 
Washington, Monroe, Jefferson, and Henry were 
honored names, and the mention of them ex- 
cited* hearty enthusiasm in any public assem- 
blage ; but their feelings and utterances about 
slavery were ignored and forgotten. As might 
be expected, there was a change of front in the 
Southern estimate of slavery. A distinguished 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 97 

Southern preacher, who wielded more influence 
in the South than any other man in his profes- 
sion, preached a sermon at the end of the year 
1860, in which lie urged the maintenance of 
slavery for the following reasons : — 

(1) As a duty to themselves, because their 
material interests were bound up in it. 

(2) As a duty to their slaves, because the 
negro was a helpless being, requiring white 
protection and control. 

(3) As a duty to the world which depended 
so much on Southern cotton. 

(4) As a duty to God, who had appointed 
slavery, and whose honor was impeached, and 
whose cause on earth was imperilled, by the 
atheistic spirit of abolitionism. He said, " With 
this institution assigned to our keeping, what 
reply should we make to those who say that its 
days are numbered ? We ought at once to lift 
ourselves intelligently to the highest moral 
ground, and proclaim to all the world that we 
hold this trust from God, to preserve it, and to 
transmit it to posterity, with the unchallenged 
right to go and root itself wherever Providence 
and nature shall carry it." In 1864, the "Nar- 
rative of the State of Religion," which it is 



98 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

the custom to give before the General Assem- 
blies of the Presbyterian Church, was given to 
the church in the South, and contained the 
following passage : " The long continued agita- 
tion of our adversaries has wrought within us 
a deeper conviction of the divine appointment 
of domestic servitude. . . . We hesitate not 
to affirm that it is the peculiar mission of the 
Southern Church to conserve the institution of 
slavery, and to make it a blessing both to master 
and slave." We have no right to question the 
personal honesty of these gentlemen, or the 
sincerity of their personal convictions. At the 
same time it is quite conceivable that the ran- 
cor of sectional strife and political feud fed 
the fire of their convictions. 

The political economist has an argument of 
quite a different nature. He has figures to give 
us and stubborn facts. Eli Whitney invented 
the cotton-gin in 1793. His invention, supple- 
mented by the inventions of Watt, Hargreaves, 
and Arkwright, converted slave-holding from 
a financially doubtful into a pa}*ing business. 
Slaves doubled in price. The cotton product 
of 1793 was ten thousand bales. In 1830 it 
was a million bales. The scoffer says that it 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 99 

very soon became apparent that slavery was a 
divine institution. While this was the state 
of affairs in the South, the more violent aboli- 
tionists were taking the church to task in the 
North. Some of them left the church because 
they could not find that Jesus or the Old or 
New Testament distinctly forbade slavery. 
Others left because the churches would not 
openly espouse their cause, and many of the 
wealthy conservative people threatened to leave 
if the church got mixed up in what they claimed 
to be a political discussion and question. 

In a subsequent chapter the relation of the 
church to evolution in morals will be treated. 
It is not necessary to say whether the North 
or the South was right. Nor do we need to- 
day to go into the merits of the much-debated 
question, as to whether or not the Bible was in 
favor of slavery. To the oft repeated and in- 
geniously put arguments of Southern divines, 
the North had its reply; and a passage from 
Munger's " Freedom of Faitli " may be given, 
which, while it appeared long after slavery 
became a dead issue, expresses in felicitous 
language the spirit of the rejoinder of North- 
ern Christians to their brethren of the South : 



100 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

" Humanly speaking, slavery could not be kept 
out of the Hebrew commonwealth; it was too 
early in the history of the world ; but it was 
hedged about by strenuous laws, all merciful in 
their character, and of such a nature in their 
operation that slave-holding became unprofit- 
able, and the system, died out. Moses* was 
wiser than this nineteenth century of ours. 
He sapped the life-blood of the institution by 
wise statesmanship ; we drowned it in a sea of 
blood and fire, — blood from a million hearts, 
fire that touched the hearts of forty millions." 
All this is true, and well and eloquently said ; 
but then it is quite venturesome to make com- 
parisons between Moses and the nineteenth 
century. Moses had not to meet the case of 
Eli Whitney and his cotton-gin. 

It is humiliating and suggestive that the line 
of cleavage on this question of slavery ran 
through all branches of the church, North and 
South. As an argument based on the letter of 
Scripture, and even on the spirit of it, or upon 
all the spirit of it that could be reached by 
argument, the position of the South was the 
stronger ; and yet the} r failed, not only by for- 
tune of war, but by the verdict of humanity. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND SLAVERY 101 

The Christian consciousness was against slavery. 
There was no appeal from its final verdict. 
The thought born in some unknown soul, To 
own a slave is wrong, was a living thing. The 
Christian consciousness of that unknown founder 
and father of abolition grew until nation after 
nation broke the shackles from men's limbs. 
Those who would not bow to the Christian con- 
sciousness were ground in the mills of God. 

" The blood-bought gold fell from the Spaniard's fainting 
hold, 
And the Frenchman sunk to his Haytien grave, 
Beneath the shout of the conquering slave." 

Dr. Hunger's eloquent words which have 
been quoted tell the experience of the United 
States in the mills of God. The British Empire 
was the first, and in some respects the greatest, 
sinner of all in the matter of slavery ; but its 
repentance was manifested, not only by volun- 
tarily freeing the slaves, but also by taxing 
itself so that the loss mio-ht not fall altogether 
upon the slave-owners, and also by her vigilance 
in suppressing the slave-trade in Africa and 
upon the high seas. But it was easier for 
Britain to be virtuous than it was for the 



102 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

Southern States. The West India planters 
were but an insignificant portion of the 
Empire, and the British were cotton man- 
ufacturers while the Americans were cotton 
growers. 



AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 103 



CHAPTER VI 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AS RELATED 
TO INTEMPERANCE, THE OPIUM TRADE AND 
GAMBLING 

While slavery affords an opportunity of 
studying the Christian consciousness as related 
to the evolution of morals as a reform that 
has been already, if but recently, accomplished, 
we have, in the use of intoxicating liquors as 
a beverage, an example of a new thing in 
morals which is yet subject to discussion. 
Presumably there never was a time when 
drunkenness was not considered by some men 
as a moral and social blunder and impropriety, 
and the Word of God has always been ac- 
knowledged as declaring it to be a sin. But 
there was a comparatively recent time when 
professedly Christian communities Avere agreed 
as to the harmlessness and sinlessness of mod- 
erate drinking of intoxicants. Discreet exhilara- 
tion, unaccompanied by scandal, was winked at. 
A time came when in the Christian conscious- 



104 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

ness of some soul was born this new, absolutely 

new, truth, TO MAKE A BEVERAGE OF THE 

intoxicant is WRONG. The first disciples of 
this creed had a hard time of it. They were 
laughed at as fanatics. They could not get 
as favorable life insurance rates as moderate 
drinkers got. The medical profession was al- 
most universally opposed to them. The brewers 
and distillers, re-enforced by importers and 
dealers in intoxicants, form the largest busi- 
ness interest of every civilized country ; and 
of course they were all opposed to the new 
movement. In America and in every country 
of Europe one of the larger sources of revenue 
to the state and to the city was derived from 
the taxation and licensing of wines, beers, and 
spirits ; and of course the financiers of the 
revenue departments were in a similar position 
to that in which the silversmiths of Ephesus 
found themselves on the occasion of Paul's 
visit. Even to this day total abstinence has 
made very little progress except among English- 
speaking peoples. Our French and German 
cousins tell us, with too much reason to make 
the telling pleasant, that we needed the new 
departure very much. 



AS li EL A TED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 105 

Notable results have been ahead}- accom- 
plished. The church as a whole, but not with 
all its ministers and members, is on the side 
of total abstinence. Eminent physicians con- 
tend that hospitals conducted without the aid 
of alcoholic stimulants are just as successful 
as those that use them. Those who hold this 
opinion are yet in a minority, but the medical 
profession as a whole are opposed to the drink- 
ing customs of society. It is a recognized evil. 
Every moralist lauds temperance, but the total 
abstainer asserts that temperance was not very 
eagerly advocated until total abstinence was 
advocated. The cry of the more earnest social 
reformers is that the saloon must go. This 
question has supplied sociology with much 
matter for thought. Is it to be license or no 
license ? or if we agree to license this business, 
shall it be a hio-h or a low license? Shall we 
adopt local option, or prohibition, or the Gothen- 
burg system? Is drunkenness a disease, and 
can it be cured ? or is it a crime, and ought 
it to be punished ? It is a political question 
and a church question as well as a social 
problem. 

When we contemplate the number of soci- 



106 THE CUBlSTlAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

eties and of organizations that gather round 
this theme, and when we consider the large 
place it occupies in political and in social life, 
it is scarcely possible to believe that in the 
beginning of this century there was none of 
it, Then minister and layman indulged in the 
social glass, and imagined that some stimulant 
was an essential part of a meal. The tavern- 
keeper, the distiller, and the brewer might be, 
and often were, pillars of the church ; while 
keeping a public-house or saloon was as re- 
spectable a business as was any other retail 
trade or handicraft. In the beginning of this 
century many men who were accounted re- 
spectable, and who held high positions in liter- 
ature and in politics, were deep in their potations 
and profuse in their profanity. Where and 
when was the beginning, the first Christian 
consciousness concerning this evil ? We cannot 
tell. Before all modern movements we find 
the Abstemii, who could not partake of the 
cup of the Eucharist on account of their natural 
aversion to wine. This natural aversion was 
in the case of the majority a mere plrysical 
disgust and repugnance. Indeed, this is be- 
yond a doubt, although in the case of some 



AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 107 

the abstinence may have been on moral 
grounds. 

Even in that intolerant age would men 
shrink from making war against a clear case 
of physical inability. The Calvinists, usually 
credited with all intolerance, allowed these 
primitive abstainers to partake of the bread, 
and merely touch the cup with their lips 
without swallowing any of its contents ; but the 
Lutherans declared that this tolerance of theirs 
Avas neither more nor less than profanation. If 
we see in this glimpse of church history the 
generous forbearance of the creed which has 
been most accused of severity in dogma and 
in discipline, do Ave not also see in the action of 
the Lutherans, not only the outcome of their 
doctrine of consubstantiation, but also a convic- 
tion on their part that the will as well as the 
physical peculiarity accounted for the conduct 
of the Abstemii ? 

The Nazarites of Scripture were abstainers, 
but their merit consisted in denying themselves 
in penance and for purification that which it 
was quite lawful for other men to use. We do 
not know when and where the first total ab- 
stainer on the grounds of morality and con- 



108 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

science lived, but there must have been a first ; 
and when this Christian consciousness came, 
this truth at once of human and divine origin, a 
greater revolution began than earth had wit- 
nessed since Jesus walked in Palestine, with 
the exception of the Reformation of religion. 

As in the case of slavery, the Bible and 
the church have been brought into the con- 
troversy. Did our Lord make an intoxicating 
wine ? Did he use fermented wine ? Does 
the New Testament teaching lead to the prac- 
tice of total abstinence on the part of the fol- 
lowers of Jesus? Or is all that we can say, 
not that we have positively found it in the 
Bible, but that the Bible does not forbid total 
abstinence? This revelation of the Christian 
consciousness is in conformity with the spirit of 
the Word on this matter of abstinence. This 
is all that can be said. If this or any other 
new thing in morals were clearly taught in the 
Bible, and had never been introduced to earth 
because we could not see it, although it had 
been there all the time, we might gain a point 
in debate by belittling our intelligence ; but in 
point of fact, in this case of total abstinence as 
a moral and Christian duty, there is as much 



AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 109 

room for debate as to what the Scriptures really 
teach as there is in the question of slavery. 
There is a very important sense in which the 
Christian consciousness may be regarded as 
revelation. By this it is not to be understood 
that it is of equal authority or certainty as is 
the Word of God, as a rule of life to all men, but 
it may be of as much authority to the individ- 
ual. God may teach a man so that his con- 
science is more outraged by the sin of using 
strong drink than it is by sins of which specific 
mention is made, such as frivolity of speech ; 
or he may be more shocked at a man owning 
slaves than at his being untruthful. 

Like every great movement of social re- 
form, this "liquor question," as it is familiarly 
known, is at once social, religious, and political. 
The parallel between it and slavery is very 
suggestive. 

(1) Both have come down to us from the 
earliest dawn of history. Noah's drunkenness 
led to the prophetic condemnation of Canaan to 
utter servitude, to be a " servant of servants," 
or, as it may more forcibh^ be rendered, "a 
slave of slaves." One does not know which to 
condemn most heartily, the shamelessness of 



110 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

the son or the drunkenness of the father; but 
all must respect the severe and unsparing sim- 
plicity of the narrative. 

(2) When the master was excessively cruel, 
or a man was a noted drunkard, human society 
disapproved, even when it did not punish. 

(3) The Bible declares drunkenness to be a 
sin, and modifies slavery with merciful and 
ameliorating provisions. 

(4) The Bible does not furnish a conclusive 
argument against domestic servitude, or against 
that use of intoxicants which does not reach the 
stage which we call drunkenness. 

(5) The* Christian consciousness has pro- 
nounced judgment against slavery, and against 
our social drinking 1 customs. 

May we not hope and expect that the com- 
parison may yet be taken one step farther, and 
we may be able at some future time to add, 
that the social and convivial drinking customs 
are as near extinction as is slavery. But if 
hope dares prophesy for good, may not also ex- 
perience prophesy for evil? An awful price 
was paid for the extinction of slavery from civ- 
ilization. Are the civilized nations of to-day 
laying up for themselves " wrath against the 



AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. Ill 

day of wrath"? Is it to cost blood and tears 
and toil and national catastrophes to free the 
slaves of the saloon and of the wine-cup? 

Another illustration of the function of the 
Christian consciousness is supplied by the 
opium trade. We emphasize the word " trade ; " 
because it is with it, and not with the opium 
habit, that we have to do. So far as the habit 
is concerned, much of what we say about drunk- 
enness is applicable to the opium habit. As a 
trade, or as it has come to be generally known, 
u the opium trade," is unique. It has no exact 
parallel. It has been the fashion to make fun 
of the vessels that sailed from Boston to the 
African coast freighted with New England rum 
and with New England missionaries. It was 
true, too true ; but the government of the 
United States had not treaties with these Afri- 
can despotisms which compelled them to re- 
ceive the rum. Any chief could issue an order 
forbidding any of his subjects from buying a 
drop of the rum ; and perhaps if any of these 
chiefs were to declare the rum-freighted ship 
a contraband, and clear it out of his port as a 
public nuisance, the owners of the ship and of 
the cargo would not get much active sympathy 



112 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

from the government at Washington. No class 
of men dislike the rum trade more heartily than 
the missionaries, and we venture to assert that 
no class of men use less of it than they do. 
The rum-traders have a manifest advantage in 
this business, because the African savage in his 
natural condition is much fonder of rum than 
he is of missionaries. 

The opium trade with China is on an en- 
tirely different moral basis. By treaty rights 
between the government of Her Majesty, the 
Queen and Empress, China is compelled to re- 
ceive the opium ships. The Chinese are not 
compelled to purchase ; but their government 
dare not forbid them to buy, and so they do bu} r 
it ; for the Chinaman loves opium even better 
than the African loves rum. Chinamen bewail 
this importation of the Indian drug, not only be- 
cause many of them are sufficiently patriotic to 
bewail the havoc, physical, mental, and moral, 
which the use of opium is making among the 
Chinese, but also because there is a native 
opium business which would "boom," if the 
expressive slang may be excused, if the article 
from Hindustan were excluded. Missionaries 
from England and America, and disinterested 



AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 113 

European merchants and travellers, unite in 
bearing witness to the evils of the opium habit 
as witnessed in China. From platform, pulpit, 
and press, this trade is vigorously denounced. 
It is wrong by the verdict of the Christian con- 
sciousness. But, on the other side, there is the 
Devil's argument that a bargain is a bargain, 
business is business, and a treaty is a treaty. 
The agricultural interests of Hindustan must 
not be sacrificed. East India merchants must 
not be ruined. We are told by the apologists 
of this infernal traffic, that the evils of opium 
have been exaggerated ; that if it was not sent 
from India, it would be sent from somewhere 
el^e ; and that the Dutch or the French would 
get die business ; or that the stopping of the 
traffic from India would do no permanent good, 
for the Chinese would soon raise an inferior, and 
perhaps a more injurious, opium for themselves. 
Meanwhile, the moral and manly fibre of 
China is strangely weak, as recent events seem 
to prove ; and while it would be a case of spe- 
cial pleading to ascribe the pitiful exhibition 
that China li:i 5 made in her war with Japan to 
the prevalence of the opium habit, who can deny 
that thij baneful drug has had more than a 



114 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

little to do with that nervelessness, dishonesty, 
incompetence, and cowardice which seem to 
prevade all ranks and all classes in China. 

We call the Christian consciousness in this 
case " enlightened public sentiment." This is 
a good phrase. We have no objections to it; 
but we believe that the torch which enlightens 
is grasped by the hand of the Christian con- 
sciousness. It is interesting as a problem in 
morals to study the attitude of Christian Eng- 
land in this matter. It may be ventured as an 
undeniable fact, that from the Empress of India 
down to the humblest in the empire, there is 
searching of heart in this matter. How long 
will it take to shame the government into doing 
right? It has got to come. When the Chris- 
tian consciousness is persistently despised, it 
may become the hammer of God which breaks 
those who will not bend. 

The function of the Christian consciousness 
is also well illustrated in the attitude of Christ- 
endom to gambling. At this point it may be 
well to anticipate a criticism which may be 
made, and which can be put very strongly. It 
may be charged that the Christian conscious- 
ness is credited with too much power in social 



AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 115 

evolution. It may be said that we can imagine 
the case of a social order in which Christianity 
is not recognized coming to the conclusion that 
gambling was injurious to the man or tribe or 
state. The Indian tribes of North America are 
notorious and inveterate gamblers. The fre- 
quenter of Monte Carlo cannot surpass the 
Indian in the calmness with which he stakes 
and loses his last dollar. The Chinaman is also 
a gambler of the persistent and seemingly in- 
curable type. Missionaries among these peoples 
have to insist upon their converts abandoning 
this* vice, as being foolish, immoral, and non- 
Christian. The Archbishop of Canterbury and 
his clergy, great and small, have a similar task ; 
and if Dame Rumor does not misrepresent the 
existing condition of social life, they need to 
begin with those of their own order who think 
there is nothing wrong in pkiying whist or any 
other game for an insignificant stake, merely to 
give some interest to their evening's amusement. 
Our Indian chief, having his own comfort 
and the good of his tribe at heart, begins to do 
some serious thinking. He sees that the win- 
ners are wasteful, and that the losers, minus 
their ponies, and even their blankets, are very 



116 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

wretched. Bitter quarrels, which weaken the 
tribe, too often arise. And so he comes to 
the conclusion that he will put his foot down 
on gambling, and will set a good example by 
himself ceasing to play games of chance for any 
stake, great or small. In all this there is not 
even religious consciousness ; for his religion, 
whatever it is, has nothing to do with the mat- 
ter. Nor, while it improves what may be 
called the morals of his tribe, is there any moral 
sense on his part of abstract right and wrong ? 
We may well suppose that our dusky warrior is 
not troubled with any conscience or ideas or 
convictions about "the greatest good of the 
greatest number." He has his own comfort in 
view, and nothing else. He is a utilitarian, pure 
and simple. It is evident to him, if he suc- 
ceeds in suppressing gambling, that in benefiting 
himself he has benefited others ; but though 
pleased at this, it is not for this that he has un- 
dertaken this reform. We may, with certain 
philosophers, follow the development of the 
moral idea in this untutored savage. He marks 
the improvement of tribal affairs with satisfac- 
tion. He sees the good that he has accomplished. 
He is a man, if a savage ; and he wonders 



AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 117 

whether there is not a way in which other cry- 
ing evils may be suppressed. We are willing 
to grant all this, but we are not able to produce 
any instance of the working out of it. 

We find a condition of sentiment and of 
practice among Christian people. It is with 
this that at present we have to do. Lotteries 
were once highly respectable. Now they are 
denied the privileges of the United States 
Mail. Our Capitol was built in part by lot- 
tery schemes, in which the people in general, 
and the Federalists in particular, had a promi- 
nent part. Church fairs in America and ba- 
zaars in England were noted and ridiculed for 
their lottery schemes. The schoolboy risked 
his marbles, the poor man his coppers, and the 
rich man his gold, in miscellaneous betting, or 
in games which might be pure chance, or skill, 
or a combination of skill and chance. Perhaps 
this vice was never more rampant than it is 
in England and America to-day. It has placed 
its baneful grasp on college sports, on athletic 
games in general; and the horse-racing of to-day 
is the saturnalia of the gambler and the book- 
maker, who is not only a gambler himself, but 
a pander to the vices of others. When a rich 



118 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

American and a prince of England have a 
yacht-race for five hundred pounds, it is a tri- 
fling stake for the deep, well-lined purses of the 
contestants. It is true that they are not in it 
for money, but for glory. The paltry stake 
may be, as it often is, given by the winner to 
be divided among the crew of the victorious 
vessel ; but the principle of the game of chance 
is there. The card-party, in which there is no 
playing for stakes, but where the host and host- 
ess give prizes to the winners, has in it the 
element of gambling. When we are told that 
many of the transactions on the stock exchange, 
the cotton exchange, the corn exchange, and 
other commercial centres, partake of the nature 
of gambling — are gambling, pure and simple, 
we cannot doubt it. When lambs are shorn, 
and successful corners entail suffering on thou- 
sands, and successful bulls or bears push their 
rivals to the wall, and clean them out as thor- 
oughl} r as ever Bedouin of the desert despoiled 
the luckless traveller, or border baron or high- 
land raider cleaned out the castle and cattle- 
yard of his foe, why should we not with Huxley 1 
say, " In my belief the innate qualities, physi- 

1 Evolution and Ethics, p. 13. 



AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 119 

cal, intellectual, and moral, of our nation have 
remained substantially the same for the last 
four or five centuries," or, as he puts it in the 
Romanes Lecture of 1893, " If there is a gener- 
alization from the facts of human life which has 
the assent of thoughtful men in every age and 
country, it is that the violator of ethical rules 
constantly escapes the punishment which he 
deserves ; that the wicked flourishes like a 
green bay tree, while the righteous begs his 
bread; that the sins of the father are visited 
upon the children ; that, in the realm of nature, 
ignorance is punished just as severely as wilful 
wrong ; and that thousands upon thousands of 
innocent beings suffer for the crime or the unin- 
tentional trespass of one." It may be remarked 
in passing that these eloquent words state the 
case very strongly for that future state in 
which the unredressed wrongs of earth shall 
be righted, and the everlasting truth shall be 
vindicated. But while thoughtful men in Ens*- 
land and in America justly regard the prev- 
alence of the gambling spirit as being a menace 
alike to social order and to public virtue, there 
are signs of promise and tokens of good. The 
Christian consciousness has been aroused. Le- 



120 THE C Jlli 1ST I AX COXSCIOUSNESS 

gislation has attempted to suppress or to keep 
in check this growing evil. 

It is remarkable how very little there is in 
the Scriptures bearing directly on this vice. In 
this respect it is in the same position as is the 
use of alcoholic drinks or the owning of slaves. 
Good people gamble in an honorable way, ac- 
cording to their estimate of honor, and they 
do so to-day, without suspecting themselves of 
wrong doing. The young ladies who taught 
in the Sunday-school distinguished themselves 
by their successful disposing of lottery tickets 
at the church fair. They sighed and groaned 
over the heartless Roman soldiers who cast lots 
for the seamless coat of Christ, the Crucified, 1 
and they disposed by lot, fifty cents each, of 
a handsome set of furs. The prize package, the 
guess cake, and the New Orleans lottery differ 
in degree, but not in kind. In many States 
these things are forbidden to-day by legislation ; 
and in quarters where there is no terror of fche 
law, the church and an ever-growing number of 
Christian men and women know that the thing 
which their fathers thought right and proper is 
wrong — utterly and forever wrong. We do 

1 John xix. 24. 



AS BELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 121 

not know where this thought was born, we do not 

know who was the first to utter the everlast- 
ing yea and nay concerning it. The genesis 
of the new spiritual life in man the unregen- 
erate is the same in mode as is the birth of 
a new truth in man the regenerate. " The 
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit." l Gambling is 
doomed so far as the moral sentiment and the 
legislation which the Christian consciousness 
can secure will doom it. The saloon is 
doomed. It and the gambling-hell must go 
the way of the slave-mart and the slave-ship. 
The spiritual forces which are to fight the good 
fight have been born into the world. 

A pleasant story is told of the late Profes- 
sor Proctor, which, however, we have only by 
hearsay. At a Boston conversazione he was 
asked by one of Boston's fair and learned 
daughters, " Professor, what is the law of grav- 
itation?" "Madam," he replied, "the law of 
gravitation is the will of God." The Chris- 
tian consciousness in its last analysis is the 

1 John iii. 8. 



122 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

will of God formulated by men chosen of 
God. 

It need scarcely be said that these three 
moral and social movements in society and in 
church life and work are not the only devel- 
opments in morals that might have been 
chosen. For example, following a similar train 
of reasoning, one can study the evolution of 
the Christian consciousness concerning cruelty 
to animals, the fighting of animals for sport, 
pugilism, the duel, and war between nations. 
Then, there are other great movements which 
are not yet within the field of the Christian 
consciousness ; but, reasoning from analogy, they 
will yet find their expounder and their place. 
In this category we place the relation of labor 
and capital, the solution of the various forms 
of social unrest and discontent which find ex- 
pression in socialism, anarchy, and communism. 
If we recommended prayer, and a devout wait- 
ing for the light of God, as an aid to the 
solution, many modern philosophers would join 
hands, or rather, would join voices, with anar- 
chist and socialist in laughing us out of doors. 
Even United States senators have been found 
who did not believe in uniting religion will) 



AS RELATED TO INTEMPERANCE, ETC. 123 

politics. But there was a Christian as well 
as a free-thinking abolition, and there were 
Christian slaves as full of trust as of ignorance ; 
but they willed to do the will of God as far as 
they knew it, when they sang : — 

" 'Way down Moses 

' Way down to Egypt land, 
And tell old Pharaoh 
To let my people go." 

It had not the ring of Miriam's song by the 
Red Sea shore ; but it was a cry from the 
heart. There was and is Christian temperance, 
and women whom the drink curse has bruised 
and broken during the centuries are in the van. 

There are many honest social reformers filled 
with the anti-gambling spirit, who are not ac- 
tive Christians, or who may not be Christians at 
all ; but men of faith and prayer are in the 
forefront of the battle. Spiritual forces have to 
be accounted for in the development of morals. 
It is easy to try to turn " Sunday School poli- 
tics " into ridicule, and it is easy to sneer at 
Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor 
reformers ; but the future is on their side. It is 
a simple fact of history, that great moral move- 



124 TUE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

ments have sometimes been hid from the wise 
and prudent, and have been revealed unto 
babes. 1 This was the opinion of Jesus, the 
Prince of moral and social reformers, those who 
will not call him Lord being judges. 

i Matt. xi. 25. 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 125 



CHAPTER VII 

THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TO EVOLU- 
TION IN MORALS 

The attitude of the church to many of the 
great moral developments of history is per- 
plexing to many minds. If there is a Chris- 
tian consciousness, if these new moral births 
are indeed of divine and human parentage, why 
should they have received such unaccountable 
greeting from the church, which professes to 
be the representative on earth of the divine, 
the supernatural ? The objector of to-day is 
read)' to tell the church and its ministers 
that they do not come from any unseen holy 
of special knowledge or power or insight. 
There is a science, and there is a secularism, 
which says, " You do not originate anything 
in morals ; true, your Bible has usually fitted 
the times, but it followed, it did not lead, the 
grand march ; you have never taken the initial 
steps in any of the great reforms, moral and 
social; you are never found in the van until 



126 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

observation, experience, and experiment have 
proven this or that reform to be the coming 
thing in morals ; then, but not till then, you 
are willing to become its apostles. You do not 
discover that this new thing is in harmony 
with your Bible and your creed until by its 
own merits and its own success it has proved 
its right to live. The church, the accredited 
ambassador of heaven, ought to be the first 
to recognize the heavenly Child; but she is 
not. These things — -and moral truths are 
things just as much as material substances are 
— were evolved by a natural process of growth, 
by the law of their being. When Paul said 
that things which were seen were not made 
of things which do appear, he was not only 
unphilosophical, he was meaningless." Such 
is the position taken to-day by many eminent 
men in Europe and America. We find it in 
newspaper and magazine. It is on the lecture, 
platform, and has begun to invade the pulpit. 

We are told to take the question of slavery 
as an instance and example. To-day almost 
all thoughtful men admit that slavery is a 
moral and social injustice ; and injustice is sin 
against society, even if there be no personal 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 127 

God against whom, and in whose sight, we 
can sin. Why did it take so many centuries 
of Christian culture to find out this truth? 
How comes it that the expounders of this 
word of God did not discover the grand truth 
long ago, and proclaim it from every platform 
and pulpit and mountain top? Not only was 
the discovery of this new departure in the 
life of the world not due to ministers of 
religion, but after the accursed thing was 
bravely condemned by the heroic fathers and 
founders of- abolition, ministers of religion de- 
nounced them, or took refuge in that neu- 
trality which shelters the coward as well as 
the sage, or gave but a faint-hearted support 
until the thing had vindicated its own exis- 
tence, and demonstrated to the world that it 
was indeed a moral army on the march, des- 
tined to move over the land and over the sea. 
So says the world ; and though the world exag- 
gerates, it is not altogether wrong.- 

Let a glance be taken at the total absti- 
nence movement. While we may and do differ 
very much as to the way in which we are to 
fight this drink curse, it is a growing opinion 
that the drinking habit, even in moderation, 



128 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

is a moral and social evil. But the world 
affirms that we have not to thank the church 
or the Bible for this growing sentiment and 
public judgment. Only after this thing in 
morals had vindicated its own existence, and 
demonstrated to the world that it was one of 
the coming things in social science, did the 
church take hold of it, and prove to the world 
that the Bible was on the side of this new 
movement. When the air was thick with 
such charges, need we wonder that they were 
formulated into such shape as : — 

(1) These things which are now seen, these 
great facts in morals, have been made or evolved 
out of things which do appear ; there is no su- 
pranatural factor in their evolution ; they have 
no divine parentage. 

(2) The church has followed these new 
movements at a discreet distance, but has 
never led the van in their promulgation. 

These are grave charges ; and we have but 
to read the history of the anti-slavery move- 
ment in Britian and in America, and the his- 
tory of the temperance movement, in order to 
make frank confession that the charges are not 
altogether groundless. 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 129 

There is, however, a great deal to be said 
in defence of the church : — 

(1) The church has been misrepresented, 
and her backwardness in moral movements 
has been exasperated. The church, more es- 
pecially since the Reformation, has been the 
warm friend and advocate of all moral move- 
ments, even granting that she has been some- 
what slow in recognizing the new. In England 
and in America, the fight for civil liberty was 
won by virtue derived from the previous train- 
ing in the struggle for religious freedom. Be- 
fore the church as a body moves, her individual 
members have been active in all high enter- 
prises and in all pioneer work ; and the men 
who have been the high priests, and sometimes 
the martyrs, of social progress, have been, in 
many cases, devout Christians. 1 

1 Much of the suffering endured by the early Puritans in 
England was in the cause of moral and social reform; but 
these reforms were always exalted into religious tenets. An 
Oxford man named Prynne, in the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century published a huge unreadable sort of book of 
one thousand quarto pages, against theatres, dancing, mas- 
querades, and women actors. He did not spare the queen, but 
had sundry reflections upon her frivolities. To-day she would 
not be called a specially frivolous woman. He was condemned 
to expulsion from Oxford and from Lincoln's Inn, fined five 
thousand pounds, placed in the pillory at Westminster and at 



130 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

(2) There is a human as well as a divine 
side to the church. It sometimes happens that 
her finances and material well-being are in the 
hands of men not remarkable for personal piety. 
A church edifice ordinarily represents not only 
a communion roll, but also a society, trustees, 
pewholders, etc., who may not all be Christians 
in the higher sense of that word. Zeal usu- 
ally welcomes sacrifice, but worldly prudence 
shrinks from and frowns i on this uncomfort- 
able and unmanageable zeal. Need we wonder 
that the human sometimes impedes the progress 
of the divine. 

(3) The church is a huge body. Denomina- 
tions are large bodies, and it is the law of such 
bodies to move slowly. The fiery apostle runs 
through the world, and is indignant if every 
sleeper is not awakened by his passing trumpet- 
blast. His impatience is natural, but nature 
is sometimes wise and sometimes foolish. Re- 

Cheapsidc. His ears were cut off, his cheeks and forehead 
branded with hot irons. They hurned his offending volume 
so literally under his nose that he was nearly suffocated with 
the smoke; and to end all, they imprisoned him for life. 

Others were treated with similar cruelty; and his Grace, 
Archhishop Laud, thanked the lords of the Star Chamher for 
their just and honorable sentence upon these men, and re- 
gretted that he could not resort to more thorough measures. 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CIIUBCU 131 

clining elephants take a much longer time to 
rise than reclining mice take. The church is 
an army, not a mob. It is a deliberative as- 
sembly even more than it is an army. By 
the very necessity that is laid upon her to 
preserve peace within her own borders, and 
to do no injury to the consciences of her 
members, a new moral movement may be 
well under way before the church with har- 
monious and united ranks can join the grand 
march of progress. 

(4) The church is an aged body ; and in so- 
cial, political, and ecclesiastic affairs, the old are 
inclined to be conservative. The youngest sect 
is usually the most radical. Those religious 
bodies that aspire to be permanently radical, 
either in dogma or in formula, cannot make 
much impression upon society. The average 
man cannot grow old comfortably in a com- 
munion that refuses to grow old with him, 
and comfort is to age what excitement is to 
youth. There is much current folly about 
preaching to specific classes and conditions of 
people. Preach so as to attract the young 
people, especially the young men. I appre- 
hend that Paul was all things to all men, not 



132 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

by preaching to young people on courtship, or 
on the ethics of the Olympian games, or on 
the morals of the chariot race, but by seizing 
the common denominator of the spiritual life 
and by holding it forth — the word of life and 
of power. Socially the true function o( the 
church is to maintain a certain moral standard, 
spiritually its true mission is to hold forth 
the word of life. The same word that com- 
forts age should stimulate youth. The church 
is a home, not a music hall ; a teacher, not a 
caterer. The church that goes into the dime- 
show business, and the catering for profit 
business, reaps present and partial success, 
and the price that she pays for it is — ultimate 
failure. In this modern tendency, however, 
we have simply a reaction from, and rebellion 
against, the church of history, which has in- 
variably been found at the opposite extreme. 
The church has very frequently resembled an 
aged father who instils lofty principles into 
his children. He himself has made them 
daring and progressive, and yet he trembles 
and doubts and fears when they begin to 
manifest his training of them in some unex- 
pected direction. It is one thing to be con- 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 133 

servative, it is quite another thing to boast 
in the semper idem. Every true church is 
conservative ; every false system, in its ever- 
lasting certainty concerning itself, claims this 
attribute of Almighty God — the unchanging. 
(5) The prime function of the church is the 
teaching and nourishing of that enthusiasm 
for God and for humanity which leavens so- 
ciety with spiritual influences. This is ac- 
complished by the regeneration of individuals 
as such. The advocacy of any particular item 
in moral or social reform, though not to be 
neglected or ignored, is neither her first nor 
her finest office-work. It is a significant fact, 
that, though some hideous social abuses, and 
some disgusting vices which it were shame 
to name, were common in the days of our 
Lord, lie did not give his apostles special 
instructions to make a crusade against them. 
The}- were to proclaim the coming of the 
kingdom of God. The light was to chase 
the darkness. The expulsive power which a 
supreme affection exercises was to be demon- 
strated. Moses gave manna. The Christian's 
manna is ever}- where, and Christ gives him 
leaven. The church is not a knight-errant 

o 



134 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

running a tilt at this abuse and at that, al- 
though she delights in her soldiers doing with 
their might what their hands find to do. She 
is an army on the march ; and when certain 
guerillas for good abuse her for not march- 
ing with them, she replies, " He that is not 
against me is for me." She is a sage incul- 
cating the principles that lie at the root of 
justice and freedom. 

Just complaint is also made that the church 
does not reprove the transgressions of the in- 
dividual sinner as she should, and as she did 
in days gone by. We are told that it is an 
army so voluntary that it can keep together 
only by relaxing discipline. We admit that 
the church is a little weak-kneed. The bond- 
age of the pulpit is not all a myth. But it 
must be admitted that if she is not as whole- 
somely vigorous as she might be on moral 
issues, she makes up for it by her keen vigi- 
lance on dogmatic issues. In fact, there is a 
tendency in churches as there is in certain 
individuals to make up for looseness of life 
by rigidity of belief. Thirty years ago Scot- 
land had an unhappy notoriety for intemper- 
ance and for her statistics of bastardy, and 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 135 

the Southern States had all the moral turpi- 
tude which slavery entails ; and yet both were 
orthodox of the orthodox so far as dogma 
was concerned. But after all the true work 
of the church is not so much the cultivation 
of a keen scent for individual heresy and for 
individual transgression, as it is to rouse the 
intellect of humanity, to quicken the con- 
science of humanity, and to renew the heart 
of humanity. 

(6) Every moral movement has its environ- 
ment. The politician, the economist, and the 
socialist may all be claiming it or repudiating 
it. Is it not fair that every such innovation 
or change should have to struggle into a lusty 
manhood, and literally- prove itself to be a 
child of God, before the church opens her doors 
of welcome and of adoption? Almost uncon- 
sciously the church has treated principles just 
as she treats the individuals who seek her 
fellowship. Men are not received into a church 
because there is an expectation, or even a prob- 
ability, that in some future they shall prove 
to be or will become worthy, good, and true ; 
nor are they usually admitted on a mere 
verbal confession when there is no knowledge 



136 THE CHBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

of their manner of life. They are expected 
to bear the fruit of the renewed life. The 
church has treated moral innovations as she 
has treated men, and this is theoretically fair ; 
but good men and good measures have often 
received but scant justice at the hands of 
the church. Our present point of view dem- 
onstrates the evenhandedness of her justice, 
rather than the wisdom of her conduct. 

(7) In many countries a union exists be- 
tween the church and the state. At one time 
this identification of the church with the state 
was the rule throughout the whole of Chris- 
tendom. We do not enter into the merits of 
such connection. Its warmest advocates will 
admit that the church and the civil power are 
not always like-minded. The priest lighted the 
altar-lamps, but the state treasury supplied the 
oil; and the church had sometimes to pay a 
bitter and humiliating price for the support 
of the state. Even where there is no connec- 
tion with the state, as in the churches of 
the United States and in the non-established 
churches of Britain, moral movements are often 
related to political parties, and social reforms 
very often find their way into politics. When 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 137 

legislation is needed, the political leaders have 
to be reckoned with, and the action of the 
church is more or less modified. 

These seven considerations take the shape 
of a cumulative apology ; and if to them we 
add the timidity, hike warmn ess, and unfaith- 
fulness to which the churches like individuals, 
must plead guilty, the wonder is, not that the 
church has done so little, but that it has done 
so much, as a pioneer in ethics and morals. 

When we have said all that can be said in 
apology for the church's relation to the evo- 
tluion of morals, we feel that there is an 
unexplained remainder ; and this consists in 
the church's denying of, or ignorance of, the 
Christian consciousness. She has known the 
truth that comes by theological science, by 
interpretation of Scripture, and by the logic of 
events, and the truth has made her free as far 
as her knowledge fitted her for freedom ; but 
her Christian consciousness has been to a oreat 
extent allowed to lie dormant. When it 
has been discussed at all, it has been put 
aside witli a certain shrinking timidity, which 
seems to say, " Do not let us have anything 
to do with it. If we once open our doors to 



138 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

its official recognition, we shall be overwhelmed 
with a whole army of cranks and of enthusiasts, 
and we shall be forced out of our own well- 
worn grooves." Let us beware of treating 
with neglect or with contempt the man who 
comes before the church or the world with a 
new thought concerning life and progress ; for 
this man or woman may be the God-appointed 
instrument through whom a new idea, a moral 
truth, is to be bom into the world. 

Sometimes the churches have been eager to 
rush into the opposite extreme. Some churches 
in the United States made abolition principles a 
sine qua non of membership, some to-day make 
total abstinence a condition, and others non- 
membership of secret societies. In certain com- 
munions there is a tendency to increase rather 
than to diminish such tests. The error of such 
a course, the narrowness and unwisdom of it, 
are apparent. It is granted that a church must 
have such unity in its dogmatic and ethical 
standards as will enable its members to feel 
that they are brethren living together in unity, 
but there should be room for the full play of 
of individuality in faith and in practice. The 
church is not made strong by dabbling in 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 139 

ethics, letting down these bars and putting up 
those. To-day a member is disciplined because 
he dances, but unrebuked he takes his wine. 
To-morrow the dancing is ignored, and the 
strong drink is condemned. To-day we cannot 
see how a Christian can consistently go to the 
theatre, but there is no harm in his belonging 
to a secret oath-bound society ; but to-morrow 
we feel kindly toward the theatricals, especially 
if amateur and devoid of artistic merit, and 
we pronounce anathema upon the member of 
the secret society. 

We can suppose the case of a man who is a 
believer, sound on the cardinal doctrines and 
of exemplary life, save for this opinion that lie 
holds, and which he is man enough to avow. 
You will not let him into your church. If 
you are right, }'ou should rejoice if every 
el mrch followed your example. This child of 
'God becomes a pariah, a religious outcast, witli 
no Lord's Table where he is welcome, with 
none that he can call his own. In this way 
very ordinary sorts of men have been con- 
verted into martyrs and heroes, and "enriched 
with all the bitter-sweet satisfaction that comes 
from a chronic sense of injustice. Coercion 



140 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

in non-essentials hinders the cause it seeks to 
help, and a church should exercise great care 
before it makes belief in or participation in 
any moral movement an essential. The sump- 
tuary legislation in which both church and 
state delighted in the past is no longer pos- 
sible, but a good deal of social tyranny in 
the name of zeal for morals and manners is 
still possible. One of the glories of the church 
ought to consist in its being the place where 
really good men can forget a hundred differ- 
ences because of their supreme oneness in 
Christ. 

You may make rules to the effect that no 
'member of your church shall be permitted to 
dance, or use strong drink as a beverage, or be 
a member of a secret society, or play cards in 
any shape or manner. Suppose that each one 
of those practices is more or less reprehensible. 
You have got a clean and rather unique society 
from an ethical point of view ; but lo ! you have 
converted your church into a club, and }'our 
Lord's Table has become an exclusive feast for 
those whose own worthiness is the measure of 
their neighbors' un worthiness. 

There is an evolution in morals subject to 



THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 141 

the creative acts of God. This evolution the 
church recognizes and guides, but does not al- 
ways lead. It advocates without invariably as- 
suming the right to enforce. It works without 
assailing the liberties of the individual. It is 
not pledged to teach any physical science or 
any mechanical art, but it is pledged to teach a 
pure ethic to society as such, and to teach the 
art of holy living and peaceful dying to the 
individual as such. In doing this its trust is 
in God, its charter is the word of Revelation. 
In the daily struggle onward and upward, it 
knows a superintending, inspiring, and creating 
God. The Christian consciousness is its hill 
of vision, and its watchword is, " Things which 
are seen were not made of things which do 
appear." 



142 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE 
HEATHEN 

The question is often asked as to how we 
can explain the elevation of moral sentiment, 
and the religious consciousness, which are found 
in some of the so-called heathen writers. When 
the sayings of Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aure- 
lius, and others are quoted, we speak of their 
guesses at truth, or of their inspiration, or of 
their familiarity with the Hebrew Scriptures, 
or with the Hebrew theology as expounded by 
masters in Israel. We claim that our view of 
the Christian consciousness is not radically af- 
fected or influenced by the views that may be 
held with regard to the religious consciousness 
in general. This makes it unnecessary to en- 
ter upon any minute consideration of the rela- 
tion between inspiration and the heathen cults. 
Moreover, this is a subject on which much has 
been said, and there is an abundance of material 
for study, though a good deal of it is of a frag- 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 143 

mentary description. But on the other hand, 
the very abundance of reference, and the many 
uses to which it has been put, call for a brief 
review of the outstanding facts in the case. 

Geology, the Book of Genesis, the Nineveh 
tablets, and the almost universal tradition of 
nations, bear testimony to the fact of the Del- 
uge. We assume the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of the Mosaic account of the Flood. The 
closing paragraph of Sir William Dawson's lat- 
est work, " The Meeting-place of Geology and 
History," states the case so admirably that we 
quote it in full. "We have merely glanced 
cursorily at a few of the salient points of the 
relation of the primitive history of man in Gen- 
esis to modern scientific discovery. Many 
other details might have been adduced as tend- 
ing to show similar coincidences of these two 
distinct lines of evidence. Enough has, how- 
ever, been said to indicate the remarkable 
manner in which the history in Genesis has 
anticipated modern discovery, and to show that 
this ancient book is in every way trustworthy, 
and as remote as possible from the myths and 
legends of ancient heathenism; while it shows 
the historical origin of beliefs which, in more or 



144 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

less corrupted forms, lie at the foundations of 
the oldest religions of the Gentiles, and find 
their true significance in that of the Hebrews. 
To the Christian, the record in Genesis has a 
still higher value, as constituting those histor- 
ical groundworks of the plan of salvation, to 
which our Lord himself so often referred, and 
on which he founded so much of his teaching." 
We are in the best of scientific company 
and fellowship when we make the Flood a 
historic starting-point, but one who believes 
in and writes about the Christian consciousness 
must be entitled to assume the credibility 
of the Old Testament record. Noah and his 
immediate descendants possessed the knowl- 
edge of the true God. Apart altogether from 
any supernatural element entering into its pres- 
ervation, from that continuity of forms which 
ritual gives, and from that persistence of doc- 
trine which faith begets, it is simply impossi- 
ble to conceive of this knowledge of God and 
worship of him coming to a sudden or abrupt 
termination. Error dies hard, and there is a 
sense in which truth never dies. It is ob- 
scured, almost blotted out ; but there is enough 
of the stately edifice left to guide the architect 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 145 

in its restoration. The Bible is very silent as 
to the period of over four hundred years which 
elapsed between Noah and the call of Abraham. 
The incident of Babel, brief notes of the dis- 
persions after the Flood and after Babel, and 
the genealogies of the sons of Noah, are all, 
about four minutes of reading-matter for four 
centuries. The worship of the true God did 
not flee the earth entirely, but it was sadly 
distorted by the inventions of mankind. It 
seems as if, when men, by reason of the growing 
mists of ignorance, error, and superstition, were 
no longer able to look into the home of God, 
at heaven's gates they found the objects of 
their adoration ; and so it comes to pass that 
sun and moon and stars are among the earliest 
objects of worship. It is easier to believe in 
and to follow the descent from pure theism 
to this worship of the powers of nature, to 
this converting of the worthy dead into demi- 
gods, the unworthy into dismal shades, to the 
worship of the reproductive principle and 
power, or of beauty, or of law and order, than 
it is to believe in the evolution of the native 
New Zealander or the inhabitants of the South 
Sea Islands up to monotheism. History tells 



14G THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

us of nations that have retrograded in morals 
and in worship, but there is no record of any 
nation rising without help from without. The 
most intellectual race of the historic past 
thanks Cadmus for its alphabet, the British 
Druids get the fire of the new life from a 
Latin missionary. The virile races of North- 
ern Europe completed that Fall of Rome which 
internal corruption made an easy task, but 
Christian Rome conquered her captors. So it 
has always been. We can believe in the un- 
aided growing worse ; but when from the low- 
est depths we are to be lifted, help must come 
from without. This is the history of the be- 
ginnings of civilization. 

Terah, the father of Abraham, went part of 
the way from Mesopotamia, and in Genesis 
the initiative in the movement is ascribed to 
him as the head of the clan ; but Moses, Nehe- 
miah, and Stephen, all unite in declaring that 
Abraham went to Canaan after his father's 
death in Haran in obedience to the divine 
voice. We have a hint that his family had 
to a certain extent fallen away from purity 
of worship before this call, but it does not 
seem to surprise Abraham that God should 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 117 

reveal himself. He knows God, and we have 
no reason to suppose that he was the only one 
on earth who knew the only one and true God. 
The journey from Mesopotamia to Palestine 
was, comparatively speaking, a much longer 
journey then than it is now ; but at the extreme 
end of it Abraham encounters Melchizedek, 
King of Salem and priest of the Most High 
God. Abraham was the priest as well as the 
chief of his clan, but Melchizedek blesses him. 
Without entering into any of the discussion 
which has gathered round this most mysteri- 
ous personage of Scripture, it will be granted 
that he was the priest of the true God. The 
generally received interpretations of the Book 
of Job are at one in aoTeeinc: that it bears 
testimony to the fact that this ancient patriarch 
was a prominent figure among other believ- 
ers who were called the sons of God. We 
have no reason for supposing that Jethro was 
the priest of a purely heathen cult. In the 
incident of Balaam and Balak we have a dis- 
obedient prophet ; but there is not the slightest 
reason for supposing that he was not a veri- 
table prophet of God, knowing him, and be- 
lieving in him. Nor need we think the less of 



148 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

him as a patriot and as a man, if he would 
fain have cursed this people on the march, in 
whom he saw the foes of his own people, and 
perhaps their future destruction. If the Magi 
were Jews of the dispersion, we can under- 
stand their intelligent thoughts concerning 
the expected Messiah; but if they were rep- 
resentations of the Gentile world, is it not rea- 
sonable to suppose that the}' represented the 
men of faith and prayer who had not lost their 
knowledge of God? 

It is too common to put the case as if it 
were a question as to whether the ancient 
world, and notably the sages of Greece, got 
their knowledge in part from intercourse with 
the Hebrew nation and contact with Hebrew 
thought, or is all that they accomplished the 
result of intellectual and ethical evolution? 
But the real question is as to how much of 
the traditional and inherited knowledge of 
God we may reasonably suppose them to have 
possessed. If it can be demonstrated that in 
addition to the possession of this lingering 
remnant of the knowledge of God, we can 
add the almost certainty of their knowledge 
of contemporary Jewish thought and writings, 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE UEAT1IEN 149 

the case is strengthened, not only by the ex- 
istence of another source of knowledge, but 
also by the fact that this second kind, that 
from contact with the Hebrew, comes to minds 
that are to a certain extent prepared for it by 
their first source of knowledge of the truth. 
What reason have we to suppose that the 
Hebrew thought had its influence upon the 
rest of the world, and that the thought of 
the Gentile world had more or less influence 
upon the Jews ? The Septuagint is evidently 
the work of translators of unequal ability, and 
it is quite likely that it was not all produced 
at one time ; but there is little doubt that it 
was in the possession of the Alexandrian Jews 
two hundred and fifty years before Christ. 
The Jews in many cases were doubtless unable 
to read their Hebrew Scriptures, hence this 
version. But whatever were the reasons for 
making this Greek version, it is difficult to 
conceive of its existence in a great centre of 
Greek literary activity, and yet escaping the 
notice of the acute and inquiring Greek mind. 
In the days of David and Solomon the land of 
Israel occupied a prominent place among the 
teeming population that was in continual flux 



150 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. 
When civilization centred in the Euphrates 
Valley, we know from the Books of Ezra. Nehe- 
miah, Daniel, and Esther, that the Jews some- 
times were prominent in the state, and their 
religions practices and tenets must have been 
more or less familiar to the peoples among 
whom they dwelt. In the early Christian 
church, Seneca was claimed by some as a 
Christian. Many of his thoughts resemble 
the Apostle Paul's; and it does not concern 
our position whether Seneca was indebted to 
Paul, or whether the great apostle of the 
Gentiles was indebted to the illustrious Roman. 
Nor does it matter whether or not we regard 
the resemblances as being simply the results 
of similar training on the part of men of ger- 
mane intellectual habit. Mr. Huxley tells us 
with evident satisfaction that " There are a 
good many people who think it obvious that 
Christianity also inherited a good deal from 
Paganism and from Judaism ; and that if the 
Stoics and the Jews revoked their bequests, 
the moral property of Christianity would real- 
ize veiy little." To do Mr. Huxley justice, it 
must be admitted that in other parts of his 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 151 

versatile authorship he has spoken more appre- 
ciatingly of the " moral property of Christi- 
anity." The Christian scholar regards the 
New Testament as a growth from the Old. 
The founder of Christianity said that he did 
not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. 
As to the morals which we have got from the 
philosophers of Greece, we need not inquire as 
to the bulk or the quality of them. The question 
at issue is, Where did these philosophers them- 
selves get their morals, which the New Tes- 
tament adopts and indorses ? Justin Martyr 
recognizes the worth of much of the Pagan 
philosophy, and he attributes it to the " logos " 
which was always in the world. We do not 
know, at this day, the sources of information 
possessed by Clement of Alexandria, but his 
opinion is entitled to respect; and he tells us 
that Plato had the Bible, and that Homer was 
indebted to it. It is quite within the range of 
guarded imagination to conceive of a good deal 
of intercourse between merchants and digni- 
taries of Israel and the other peoples of the 
Levant in those days when the wonderful 
Temple was in course of erection, and the 
wealth and glory of Solomon were attracting 



152 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

attention on every side. The meeting-place 
was Phoenicia, famous alike for its commerce, 
culture, and skill in handicraft. In passing, it 
is to be noted that these statements of Justin 
Martyr's and Clement's will not fit very well 
into the " Higher Criticism " of to-day, be- 
cause, according to it, there was little or no 
Bible in the time of Plato, and scarcely any in 
the days of Homer. 

If to the knowledge of God which came down 
from the dawn of history, the precious, but too 
easily forgotten, knowledge which the descen- 
dants of Noah possessed, we add the knowledge 
that came from contact with Hebrews, and with 
their literature, is there not a strong case for 
the possession by some of a religious conscious- 
ness which was not wholly the product of 
evolution ? Our argument is historical, not 
doctrinal ; nor is it desirable at this stage to 
introduce such an argument, but from the 
Christian standpoint, it is evidently legitimate 
to add whatever of illumination there came to 
the men of the pre-Christian era from the 
eternal logos. 1 He was " the true light which 

1 The idea of the Resurrection was held by Democritus, 
and was scoffingly referred to by Pliny. Lucretius almost 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 153 

liglitetli every man that cometh into the 
world." 1 Every man has a part, much or 
little, of that light. This was something more 

quotes Ecclesiastes. Homer gave the soul wings by which it 
Mew out of the body into the mansions of the dead. 

This brief editorial from the Boston Congregationalist of 
the 28th of February, 1895, is significant: — 

DO ALL HAVE EQUAL SPIRITUAL OPPORTUNITIES ? 

No and yes. The child of a Pagan African Bushman certainly 
cannot be said to have an equal opportunity to acquire spiritual 
knowledge with the child of an enlightened, consecrated New Eng- 
land or Ohio household. The one knows next to nothing about God, 
and nothing at all about Jesus Christ or revealed truth. The other 
has inherited the Christian riches of the centuries, and understands 
not only his opportunities of religious growth, but also his responsi- 
bility for their use. A wider contrast than that between two such 
children hardly can be imagined. The one certainly is not upon an 
equal footing in the matter with the other. 

But they may be regarded from another point of view. Suppose 
the soul of the African child, as childhood develops into maturity, 
to feel a precious consciousness of the presence of the great God, to 
strive feebly yet earnestly to obey and please him, and to be devoted, 
however imperfectly, to the effort to live loyally up to the little spir- 
tual light which has been afforded. Suppose the American child to 
be, as so many, alas! are, often indifferent, rather than increasingly 
devoted, to God, and to grow in holiness only sluggishly and by no 
means as fast or as far as possible. 

Now, although the latter may attain a moral plane far higher 
than that of the former, and even may have started upon a plane 
much higher than the highest ever attained by the former, it may be 
the young African, not the American, who at last lias risen more 
from his original state toward God, who has made the longer progress 
toward holiness, who has exhibited the more genuine spiritual ear- 
nestness and fidelity. And this may be, and doubtless is, what God 
values most. So that in respect to the possibility of spiritual prog- 
ress, which is the essential matter, the two cases supposed, and all 
cases, stand upon the sam footing. Each has been granted an 
equal opportunity to rise. How else, indeed, could God be fair, as 
he must be ? 

1 John i. 9. 



154 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

than the mere light of nature. Our plea for the 
possession of the religious consciousness other 
and more than natural evolution can give, is a 
threefold cord. 

At this point it may be argued that the re- 
ligious consciousness does not leave much more 
for the Christian consciousness to confer on 
those who possess it. Saul of Tarsus was a 
man able to judge in this matter. So far as we 
can judge, his religious consciousness was de- 
veloped before his conversion to Christianity. 
He was not lacking in moral earnestness. Now, 
it so happens that Paul the Christian throws 
out a singular and altogether remarkable chal- 
lenge to history bearing on this matter. He 
says: "For seeing that in the wisdom of God 
the world through its wisdom knew not God, 
it was God's good pleasure through the fool- 
ishness of the preaching to save them that be- 
lieve." 2 This is the culmination of an eloquent 
strain of rejoicing in the power of Christ's 
death. The world was in — had sunk into — 
a position which is plainly described as not 
knowing God. This evidently had not always 
been the case. The world had come to this 
i Cor. i. 21. 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 155 

ignorance of God in, bj*, or through its wisdom. 
This was God's decree. It was in the wisdom, 
will, and plan of God. It is only a halting 
logic which limits the Eternal Omniscient. 
With Omnipotence on the one hand, and the 
freedom of the human will on the other ; it is 
not reason, but imagination, conjecture, and hy- 
pothesis, which tries to reconcile and explain 
this coexistence. When man's wisdom failed, 
then God's plan of salvation, his means to that 
end, was to come into play. It was the fool- 
ishness or simplicity of preaching. 

Without entering upon any discussion of the 
literature that has gathered round questions as 
to the date of the authorship of the historical 
books of the Old Testament, it is to be noted 
that, by almost common consent, the long line 
of the prophets came to a close about four 
hundred years before Christ, and then came the 
centuries of God's silence. The world was left 
to its own wisdom ; and never had the wisdom 
of the world a better chance to excel than 
in those centuries. They were ushered in by 
Socrates, who was persuaded about the reality 
of his religious mission, and who believed in 
the divine voice that spoke to him. He taught 



156 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

the doctrine of contented poverty by precept 
and by example. He was the greatest ethical 
teacher that the world has ever seen. Plato, 
his pupil, was the master of dialogue and of phi- 
losophy. Both were profound moralists. The 
roll-call of the century which was heralded by 
these greatest of the Greeks, say from 400 to 
300 B.C., is unequalled in history. Aristotle, 
philosopher, logician, and mathematician ; Dio- 
genes the Cynic, the keenest of critics ; Euclid, 
geometrician and philosopher ; Zeno, father of 
the Stoics ; and Epicurus of the Epicureans, 
— were all men of this marvellous century. 
Nor were the gentler elements of life lacking. 
From Homer, Herodotus, Xenophon, and Phid- 
ias, they had a rich inheritance of poetry and 
art. It was the age, not only of philosophy, 
but also of poetry, art, and oratory. Rome con- 
quered Greece b} T arms, and Greece conquered 
Rome by her philosophy. These centuries wit- 
nessed not only the glory of Roman power, but 
also her Augustan age of literature. 

The civilization of the West was only that 
of one-half of the world. Another half lay to 
the east of this singular people who dwelt in 
Palestine. There we find Buddhism. It is the 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 157 

fashion amongst certain visionaries and extre- 
mists in these days to find wonderful comfort 
in Buddha. The world is indebted to Max 
Midler, Rhys Davids, and other Oriental stu- 
dents for the light that they have thrown upon 
that system of belief which influences more or 
less the destinies of four hundred millions of 
our fellow beings. But there are others who 
are visionaries when they are not frauds, and 
who are not philosophers in either case, who 
find what seems to be sometimes a morbid and 
sometimes an ecstatic satisfaction in certain 
occult mysteries and puerile miracles. Every 
man lives by faith. We must believe, even if 
our faith is a belief in unbelief. The devotees 
of Western spiritualism and of Eastern occult- 
ism are cousins-german. 

David Hume was a bachelor ; and he lived 
with his mother, a good old Scotch lady, who 
was not troubled with her famous son's scepti- 
cism. Nor does she seem to have been much 
troubled about him. This pleasant story is 
told of her. It is one of those stories which 
ought to be true if it is not, — a story which 
is a parable if it is not history. She was enter- 
taining certain old ladies of Edinburgh to tea; 



158 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

and with engaging frankness of sympathetic 
intimacy, one of them remarked : " It must be 
hard for you, Mrs. Hume, to live with a man 
like your son David, who believes i.i nothing." 
" My son David believe in nothing ! " retorted 
the old lady. " It's little ye ken about my 
Dauvit. He'll believe anything that is not in 
the Bible." 

Edwin Arnold gives the date of Buddha as 
B.C. 623. Max Miiller places it at B.C. 557. 
But Rhys Davids, perhaps the first authority on 
this question, gives the date as B.C. 492. He 
belonged to the same generation as Phidias and 
Socrates. The best thought of India came just 
before the divine silence began. In China, Con- 
fucianism assumed its present form about B.C. 
500; and Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism, was 
the contemporary of Socrates and of Buddha. 
Did ever the world have such a chance as it 
had in these four centuries that preceded the 
Christian era ? East and West there was phe- 
nomenal intellectual activity, aesthetic culture, 
artistic skill, and literary activity. Nor was 
there lacking, seemingly, the moral and spirit- 
ual capital which are required for the higher 
business of the world. Contact with the Jew 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 159 

remained ; but the knowledge of God that once 
filled the earth was a rapidly vanishing posses- 
sion. The wisdom of the world was having its 
opportunity and trial. So Paul says. Even 
the man who does not believe in the inspiration 
of the Scriptures has, as a mere matter of liter- 
ary criticism, to accept the genuineness and au- 
thenticity of Paul's letters. His inspiration 
may be denied, but his work cannot be ignored. 
He tells us that the wisdom of the world was 
on its trial ; and the result was that this wis- 
dom, whatever else it did, blotted out the 
knowledge of God. " The world through its 
wisdom knew not God." 

Let us suppose that some student of moral 
and social problems nourished B. c. £00. All 
the mighty men whom we have named have 
passed away ; but almost all of them are men 
of the last hundred and fifty years. Our stu- 
dent watches the throbbing, earnest, quickened 
life of Greece, and, patriot as he is, dreams 
fondly of the good time coming from it all. 
Nor can he help rejoicing for humanity's sake 
in the vigorous and virtuous Roman Republic, 
even though he fears while he admires. While 
this is the state of his mind and of his knowl- 



160 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

edge, an adventurous Greek comes to Athens 
from far-off India. He tells our sage the story 
of the great Indian reformer. He gives rose- 
colored but fair information as to what has 
already been accomplished, and as to what the 
hope of India is. And yet another comes bear- 
ing tidings from afar. He has been to far-off 
Cathay and beyond, and lias a strange story to 
tell of a civilization which is young and hope- 
ful, of a great philosopher, and of a great re- 
former. The thoughtful Greek hears their 
wonderful stories, and rejoices. Is there not 
good reason to believe that the world is on 
the eve of mighty changes for good? Why 
should he not grow prophetic in his zeal, and 
believe in the coming good and in the com- 
ing wisdom ? What did come of it all ? — 
of these centuries of philosophy, poetry, and 
art, which were also centuries throbbing with 
new spiritual impulses, with the vigor of new 
creeds, and with the enthusiasm of new leaders ? 
Let the first chapter of Romans answer the 
question. Let Gibbon bear his testimony all 
unswayed by zeal for the Christian faith. Read 
Farrar's " Early Days of Christianity." All au- 
thorities unite in telling a somewhat similar 



CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HEATHEN 161 

shameful story. The wisdom of the world was 
a dismal failure. Insincerity, cruelty, and self- 
ishness were rampant. Society was honey- 
combed with vice. The anticipations of the 
sage had not been fulfilled. The world had 
grown worse. 

The pleasant city of Pompeii lies beside the 
great mountain. It is not a capital like Rome, 
having the wealth, gayety, and vices of an im- 
perial centre. It is a fair representative of the 
average prosperous community of that day. It 
was buried, as one might say, instantaneously, 
and it lay buried for long centuries. The ex- 
cavation of the buried city tells us just how 
they lived when our Lord walked this earth. 
It is a sad story of artistic excellence and of 
moral filth. Christ came in the fulness of time, 
so far as earth's need of some one to show it 
goodness, truth, and life was concerned. The 
Christian consciousness came into a world from 
which the religious consciousness had almost 
vanished, so far as any knowledge of the true 
God, any pure theism, was concerned. History 
tells of the decline and fall, as well as of the 
evolution and ascent, of nations and of indi- 
viduals. When the "centuries of the divine 



162 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

silence began, the world had a good amount of 
moral and spiritual capital ; but her wisdom 
proved to have a fatal defect. She lost almost 
all her capital, and Jesus came into a world 
that was morally and spiritually bankrupt. 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 103 



CHAPTER IX 

THE RELATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUS- 
NESS TO DOCTRINE 

In considering the relation of the Christian 
consciousness to development or evolution of 
doctrine, we are met first of all by those who 
deny that there is any such thing as an evolu- 
tion or development of doctrine. Fortunately, 
however, this is not a question of theory, but 
of fact ; and to the facts in the case we propose 
to appeal. We have also to encounter the 
difficulty of discriminating between moral sanc- 
tions and dogmatic statements. For example, 
the Southern preachers declared that abolition 
was an atheistical principle ; and the abolition- 
ists of the North, who were in sympathy with 
religion, in many cases desired a church in 
which the holding of sound abolition principles 
would be a test of membership. The issue was 
transferred from morals to doctrine by both 
parties. In the temperance question, when a 
church takes official action in favor of prohibi- 



164 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

tion, it not only asserts a dogma, or doctrine of 
the church, but it also lifts the question into 
the arena of practical politics. To this it may 
be replied that this is not one of the great 
doctrines of theology. True, it has not a his- 
tory, because it is new. It does not require an 
apologetic literature, because there has not been 
division on account of it, or much organized 
attack of it ; but it is doctrine, nevertheless, and 
of more practical importance to-day, and more 
of a living issue in Protestantism to-day, than 
is, let us say, baptismal regeneration, or the dif- 
ference between consubstantiation and transub- 
stantiation. 

Much depends upon our definition of doc- 
trine. Is it the thing taught? Then the word 
embraces the whole of revelation. Is it that 
which is necessary for salvation ? Then it covers 
a few simple truths. Is it those truths that are 
commonly held in all the churches ? Then 
many doctrines will be excluded. Is it the con- 
fessional symbols of each denomination and the 
sum total of all of them ? Then the field is 
very wide. There is a sense in which we may 
claim that every moral movement is related 
to some phase of Christian doctrine, and it is 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 165 

equally true that every doctrine will have moral 
issues ; but it is easily understood and readily 
accepted when we say that the thought of the 
church about the use of alcoholic drinks is a 
moral problem, and her thought about the sal- 
vation of the heathen is a question in doctrine. 
In choosing" the doctrine of the salvation of 
infants as affording our first illustration of the 
relation of the Christian consciousness to devel- 
opment in doctrine, let it be steadily kept in 
mind that the question before us is not as to the 
truth of the doctrine, or the opposite, but simply 
a question as to the how, — the mode by which 
the present largely prevailing opinion came into 
the church. What was the prevalent opinion 
on this question after the Reformation ? It goes 
without saying that those churches which be- 
lieve in baptismal regeneration do not believe in 
the salvation of all infants. It is well known 
that infant salvation was not taught in the Cal- 
vinistic churches of the seventeenth century. 
Their creeds do not teach it, and much of their 
literature proves that the opposite opinion was 
held. It was never asserted that all infants 
were lost, but it was plainly taught that many 
fell short of salvation. Some of these churches 



166 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

held that baptism signified and sealed the par- 
taking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, 
bnt only the children of members of the church 
could be baptized. Another church said there 
is no salvation without baptism, but we will 
baptize every child. And yet another said bap- 
tism is the privilege and duty of believers; 
therefore we will not baptize any man until he 
is able in years, in knowledge, and in heart to 
make confession of his own faith. The elect 
infants were the unconscious heirs of grace. 
Calvin's position about the chosen children, is 
in this sentence, " Quos parvulos Dominus ex hac 
vita recolligit, non dubito regenerari arcana 
Spiritus operatione." To-day the salvation of 
infants is very generally believed throughout 
Protestant Christendom. No doubt a very good 
argument can be made in favor of this belief. 
It may be briefly outlined as follows : granting 
that a clean thing cannot come out of an un- 
clean, granting original sin and the guilt of it, 
in what sense did Christ taste death for this 
infant, if it was not to wash away this inherited 
stain ? 1 He is the Saviour of all men, especially 
of those that believe. 2 If a child grows and be- 

i Heb. ii. 9. 2 i Tim. iv. 10. 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 167 

lieves he is saved ; surety if he dies before he 
can choose between good and evil he will not 
be lost. Jesus said, " Of such is the kingdom 
of God." 1 Therefore the children are the sons 
of God. They either do not need to be born 
again, or they have been born again. In either 
case, " He is the propitiation for our sins : and 
not for ours only, but also for the sins of the 
whole world." 2 According to such a view of 
the truth, the child should be taught that he is 
the child of God, and will be his child forever, 
unless by his own act he goes into the far coun- 
try of sin and disobedience. He should not be 
taught that he is a hell-deserving little wretch. 
If such views are right, do we not need to recon- 
struct our theology concerning baptism ? God's 
ordinances are for God's people. Do we not 
baptize the child and the adult for the same 
reason, because of their being children of God, 
saved by his grace ? This more hopeful creed 
and sunnier theology may be true or it may 
not. These sixteenth and seventeenth century 
divines were better theologians than we are. 
There is an inexorable chain of reasoning in 
favor of their views. The world's thought on 

i Mark x. 14. 2 i j h n ii. 2. 



168 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

this subject lias not changed by a logical process, 
but the Christian consciousness has asserted 
itself. It says, " Your logic may be faultless, 
and your interpretation may be correct ; but it is 
not the will of God, it is not the thought of God. 
The time will surely come when the error in 
your logic and in your interpretation will be 
clear to all the world. Meanwhile, the position 
of my Christian consciousness is not that I will 
not believe, but that T cannot believe as you do." 
Does not this describe the attitude of many ? 

There is a good deal of indefinite writing 
and speaking in these days about the Zeit Geist, 
the spirit of the age. It is regarded as ex- 
plaining a condition of things, whereas it is 
merely the putting' of a label upon it. The 
spirit of the age is the consensus of opin- 
ion. Some men may hold an opinion almost 
in spite of themselves, and with a certain 
amount of mental reservation and unwillinof- 
ness ; some entertain it very doubtingly and 
tentatively ; and some are its confident and 
enthusiastic promulgators. In secular affairs 
the spirit of the age is the aggregate con- 
sciousness of a community ; in morals and doc- 
trine it is the Christian consciousness. 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 169 

We are sometimes told b}' a certain class of 
apologists that the sixteenth and seventeenth 
century men were so busy with their light 
with Rome and with the necessary formula- 
tion of their systematic theology, that they 
had no time for the consideration of those 
ethical, moral, and even dogmatic issues that 
are of so much interest to us. But as a 
matter of fact, they had both time and incli- 
nation to reduce their theories to practice ; 
and the moralities were looked after with all 
the vigilance to be expected of a dominant 
church which had freed itself spiritually from 
Rome, but had not freed itself from the tra- 
ditional policy of Rome. The question as to 
whether the seventeenth or the nineteenth cen- 
tury belief concerning the salvation of infants 
is the correct interpretation, applies not only 
to this doctrine, but to eveiy doctrine that has 
been modified by the Christian consciousness. 

THE SALVATION OF THE HEATHEN. 

This question has been so much and so 
keenly debated of late years that it is not 
necessary for our purpose in this work to go 
into it. The trial of a professor of Andover 



170 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

Theological Seminary, and the prolonged dis- 
cussion in the American Board, as to its rela- 
tion to those candidates for the mission field 
who entertained the larger hope of the pos- 
sibility of salvation after death, by the pres- 
entation of the Christ, whom in life they 
had no opportunity of knowing, and there- 
fore no opportunity to accept or to reject, 
has brought this doctrine very prominently 
before the public mind. But it has been not 
altogether as friendly to the acceptance of 
belief in the salvation of the heathen as might 
be supposed, because it, as it were, prescribed 
the one method by which it was secured. 
This "one chance more" doctrine is rejected 
by many who entertain a hope of the salva- 
tion of some of the heathen. In the preceding 
chapter we have endeavored to state the con- 
siderations which may be regarded as justify- 
ing the Christian consciousness for this belief 
concerning the future of, not all the heathen. 
But the Christian consciousness, while it needs 
rational sanctions, does not always wait for 
exegetical justification ; and just in this must 
always lie its strength and its weakness. 
What is the difference between a rational 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 171 

sanction and a theological justification ? It 
may be put in this way. If to whom much 
is given, of him much shall be required ; and 
to whom little is given, little shall be required; 
it follows that to whom nothing is given, noth- 
ing shall be required. The use or the abuse of 
the knowledge given, therefore, seals the fate 
of man. The abstract conception of supreme 
justice enables us to believe in the impossi- 
bility of any going away from the throne of 
the Eternal Justice feeling or believing that 
they have been hardly dealt with. There- 
fore the heathen who makes shipwreck of life 
must feel not only that he is reaping as he 
sowed, but also that he had light enough to 
sow in other fashion, had his free will so chosen 
and consented. This may be called a rational 
sanction for the Christian consciousness ; but 
it will not satisfy it, neither will it create it. 
The thought of God, and the witness of God, 
are there. 

An exegetical or theological justification is 
another thing ; and here, again, the seventeenth 
century theologian has the victory. He can 
and does prove that the heathen are perish- 
ing almost if not altogether without exception. 



172 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

He not only proved it; he believed it. And 
yet for a century and a half he made no effort 
to reach them, no effort to obey the last com- 
mand of his risen Lord. Even dignitaries 
of the Church of England made fun of the 
beginnings of missionary work in India. They 
NOW believe it; and in every Protestant country 
under heaven you will find towns or hamlets 
of say from three hundred to one thousand 
inhabitants with about two or three times the 
clerical force necessary for their best, highest 
good; and Ethiopia in vain stretches out her 
hands unto God, and there is not one worker 
for a hundred thousand of those who are 
perishing. 

Is it to be wondered at if the Christian con- 
sciousness testifies thus to itself : " Ah, no ! the 
church does not believe. She only thinks she 
believes it. Would the church wrangle over 
vestments, and wax candles, and ecclesiastical 
tailoring ? Would she waste her energies over 
questions pertaining to the province of reverent 
and scholarly specialists ? Would she expend 
so much energy as she does now in a hundred 
ways if she really and truly believed that the 
perishing millions were sinking into perdition, 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 173 

and over the very edge of the pit were waiting 
in vain for life. Ah, no! the church does not 
believe ; she only thinks she believes." It 
would be easy to prove that this soliloquy of 
the Christian consciousness was all wrong be- 
cause so utterly out of historical perspective, 
and conceding so little to the imperfection of 
human nature, and to the unfaithfulness of 
Christians ; but then you do not succeed in 
convincing the Christian consciousness. Nay, 
more, this stubborn Christian consciousness de- 
clares : " I know God ; your theology is wrong. 
I may not be able to prove it, but it is erro- 
neous ; and the time is coming when it will not 
be taught in your schools ; and then for Christ's 
sake you will do more for the heathen than you 
are doing now." The appeal is to the verdict 
of time ; and let it go to its chosen time, and 
place of decision. There is neither pleasure 
nor profit in debating it now. But it is well 
to keep in mind the outstanding facts of the 
case. 

There are certain features common to the 
doctrines of infant salvation, and the salvation 
of the heathen. 

(1) As a rule the churches of the Reforma- 



174 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

tion did not believe in, and did not teach, the 
salvation of infants or of the heathen. 

(2) Their condemnation was not only be- 
lieved in ; it was the theme of discourses in the 
pulpit, and found its place in the popular litera- 
ture 1 and verse of the period. 



1 Michael Wigglesworth was the most wretched rhymster 
who ever achieved a reputation, even in those colonial days of 
New England of which Prof. Coit Tyler says : " Neither ad- 
vanced age, nor high office, nor mental unfitness, nor previous 
respectability, were sufficient to protect any one from the poetic 
vice." His " Day of Doom " was the most popular and widely 
read book in America previous to the Revolution. This is his 
picture of the wicked at God's Judgment Bar. 

" With dismal chains and strongest reins 

Like prisoners of hell, 
They're held in place before Christ's face, 

Till He their doom shall tell. 
These void of tears, but filled with fears, 

And dreadful expectations; 
Of endless pains, and scalding flames, 

Stand waiting for damnation." 

Wigglesworth put into execrable verse what the preachers of 
his day taught in ornate but forcible prose. It was an over- 
confident theology. It knew everything. 

The Puritan divines were as infallible in their way as 
Rome was. In the seventeenth century every man was a 
dogmatist of the severest type, until with the end of the cen- 
tury came the inevitable reaction. But to return to Wiggles- 
worth. He proceeds to parade his theology in reply to those 
who had died in infancy, and who pleaded that they had never 
done good or evil personally, but had been straightway carried 
" from the womb into the tomb." 



RELATION TO V0CT1UNE 175 

(3) Theoretically and officially the churches 
have not changed their doctrinal position with 
regard to these two doctrines. 

(4) There has, however, been a change in 
the thought and feeling of the churches ; and 
this change has been manifested by demands 
for simpler and shorter creeds, and for modi- 
fied forms of subscription to existing creeds. 



" You sinners are; and such a share 

As sinners may expect, 
Such you shall have, for I do save 

None but mine own elect. 
Yet, to compare your sins with their 

Who lived a longer time, 
I do confess, yours is much less, 

Though every sin's a crime. 
A crime it is, therefore, in bliss 

You may not hope to dwell; 
But unto you, I shall allow 
The easiest room in hell." 

Can a dismal anthropomorphism go any farther ? Wiggles- 
worth 's God is a sort of gloomy and glorified Oliver Cromwell. 
But Wigglesworth's God was the God of the Protestant major- 
ity in Britain and in America. Need it be added that Roman 
Catholics and Sacramentarians in the Episcopal Church and in 
other communions taught the hopelessness of the case of those 
who died unbaptized. The former view has changed; the 
latter has not. The former view said, " The guilt of the 
parent is upon the child; " the latter view said, "The act of 
faith and duty on the part of the parent and of the church has 
saved the child." 

In the debates of the famous Westminster Assembly, there 
was substantial agreement as to doctrine, but there was great 
difference as to government. 



176 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

(5) These doctrines are not preached as 
they were in former years. There is either a 
significant silence, or a bold proclamation of 
faith in the future wellbeing and blessedness 
of the children. 

(6) The change of view has been so far 
much more marked and decided in the case of 
the salvation of infants than in that of the 
salvation of the heathen. 

If our doctrinal or theoretic position has not 
changed, we naturally expect to find the cause 
of this change of belief in our modified con- 
ceptions of the character of God, as revealed 
to us by and in our Christian consciousness. 
We cannot lay too much emphasis upon the 
modifications of doctrine that come from chan- 
ging and larger and juster conceptions of the 
character of God, for this is peculiarly the 
finest office work of the Christian conscious- 
ness. There are doctrinal changes and differ- 
ences in which the character of God is not in- 
volved ; or, rather, let us put it as changes in 
which our ethical and moral conceptions of the 
divine character are not involved. For exam- 
ple, the questions as between pre- and post-mil- 
lenarian views are always interesting, and were 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 111 

never more interesting than at the present day, 
when the feeling grows that " the times are 
waxing late," and the pre-millenarian's views 
are being expounded by so many men emi- 
nent for evangelical zeal and for sound scholar- 
ship. No one denies the fascination that there 
is in the blessed vision of the future that is un- 
folded by it ; and every scholar knows the grave 
difficulties that stand in the way of its accept- 
ance by many. But in all this the divine char- 
acter is not involved. Our thought about God 
is not to be strained or changed by the position 
that we occupy in this matter. But our thought 
about God is involved in our conceptions of him 
as related to infant salvation, and the salvation 
of the heathen. 

It may be said that faith should rise above 
gloomy doubts and fears, and should enable us 
with patience and confidence to wait for the 
revealing of the everlasting right. But it does 
not. The supreme desire of every pure soul is 
to know God. 4i Blessed are the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God." It is true that the 
finite can have but a partial vision of the infi- 
nite. We wait for the blessed time coming, 
when we shall know and shall see him as he is ; 



178 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

but, meanwhile, my vision of God must be real 
so far as it goes. I may see as in a glass 
darkly, but I cannot afford to have a distorted 
image. My conception of God, as far as it 
goes, must be satisfactory to my reason. 

There is another class of moral and spiritual 
problems in which the character of God is in- 
volved. Take, for example, the allied questions 
of persecution and cruelty. Putting to one 
side the horrors of heathenism, let us consider 
the torture, cruelty, and oppression of the 
Christian era. The Spanish Inquisition has the 
bad pre-eminence of being the most notorious 
instance of heartless cruelty under show of law ; 
but it was everywhere. Torture to extract con- 
fession was employed by the authorities in the 
case of political and civil criminals, as well as 
against heretics. The Tower of London and 
the Bastile of Paris had their dreadful stories 
of suffering just as the Spanish Inquisition had. 
Roman Catholics employed torture, and so 
did Protestants. Freedom of conscience was 
not understood. It was natural that the age 
that burned and drowned old women on charges 
of witchcraft should inflict the death penalty 
for comparatively minor offences against prop- 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 179 

erty. These atrocities were often perpetrated 
not only with the sanction of civil law, but also 
with the alleged authority of the Scriptures. 
It must be confessed that an age that dwelt 
more in the Old Testament spirit and times 
than in the sunlight of Christ, the Light of the 
World, could easily drift into the practising of 
such a sanguinary and gloomy criminal code. 
But, however much our Christian consciousness 
may be dismayed and shocked as we look back, 
however much some of the purer spirits who 
lived in those ages of cruelty might have been 
morally dismayed at the deeds which they wit- 
nessed, let us remember that the character of 
God is not at stake. We see all around us, 
now as well as then, the glaring injustices of 
the present, — the prosperit}* of the wicked, and 
the misery of those who are more sinned against 
than sinning ; but Ave take ref uge in that future 
in which right and truth will be vindicated, and 
sorrows will be healed, and tears will be dried. 
It is another problem when we have to think of 
children and of the heathen, for their doom is 
carried into that future which puts these other 
wrongs right. It is not only carried into the 
future, it is carried into an endless future. 



180 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

While the sterner and gloomier view of reve- 
lation was the interpretation of the majority of 
the theologians of the seventeenth century, it 
cannot be asserted that the larger hope was 
without its advocates at all times. In " Eu- 
doxa," by John Robinson, doctor of physics, 
published in 1658, when the author was an old 
man, he speaks of " The universal church out of 
which there is no salvation : And of this uni- 
versal church many have been and are amongst 
the pagans, Turks, and remotest heretics saved 
by a way unknown to us : as little children are 
said to believe : Matt, xviii. 6." In the same 
treatise, and consistently with his own posi- 
tion, he gives a definition of justification which 
will be new to some even at the end of the 
nineteenth century. " Justification does not, 
as some will urge, always presuppose guilt ; 
it sometimes may be a declaration of innocence." 
John Dove, who published a book in 1620, in 
which he criticises some of the views of John 
Robinson of Leyden, expresses his belief in the 
salvation of infants, and boldly affirms that the 
doctrine of original sin is an invention of Rome. 
He also declares that God reprobates none ex- 
cept those who reject his grace offered in his Son. 



RELATION TO DOCTRINE 181 

We take the theology of the century follow- 
ing the Reformation as our starting-point. We 
find two lines of thought concerning" the fate of 
infants and of the heathen. The extreme Cal- 
vinism which was approved of by the great ma- 
jority is the more logical of the two views. 
The amelioration of this view that has come 
into the heart of Christendom is not the result 
of new data, or of keener logic, or of more 
learned interpretation of Scripture. It is the 
result of the larger view of the character of 
God revealed in and to us by the Christian 
consciousness. The change in the hearts and 
thoughts of men as to the salvation of the little 
children has come to the front by a vigorous 
beating against the stream. Systematic theol- 
ogy was and is against it. The doctrines held 
by the churches of the Reformation were 
against it, while their opposition took different 
shapes. The guilt of Adam's first sin was a 
millstone round the neck of many trembling 
ones. The popular literature clothed the 
gloomy shadows with an unsparing realism. 
The change has come not from a change of 
creed, for creeds have been changed but little ; 
not from a more learned exegesis, for the theol- 



182 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

ogy of the Reformation is exegetically strong ; 
not from the positive teaching from the pulpit, 
for so far the pulpit is in the first stage of in- 
evitable doctrinal change, — it is silent concern- 
ing the old, and also concerning the new; it has 
come from the apprehension and comprehension 
of the character of God 1 by the Christian con- 
sciousness. The fate of the heathen is to-day 
in the position which infant salvation held in 
the Christian consciousness Mty years ago. It 
does not necessarily follow that the universal 
salvation of the heathen will be accepted by the 
Christian consciousness. 

1 It is interesting to note that the age which evolved the 
Puritan and hyper Calvinistic conception of the character of 
God, also elaborated Milton's Satan. Considered as a literary 
conception, Satan is Milton's grandest character. "He has 
given the Devil his clue," and more than his due; and the 
popular conception of the arch enemy of man is a compound 
of the devil of the miracle play, the Satan of Milton, and the 
Satan of Scripture. The first half of the seventeenth century 
could not do justice to the dignity of man. His Adam is 
commonplace. 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH 183 



CHAPTER X 

CONSCIOUSNESS 
PLACE IN THE CHURCH 

Many considerations unite to give much 
interest to the study of the relation of the 
Christian consciousness to the place and func- 
tions given to woman in the Christian church. 
It is a doctrinal question, but it is not a car- 
dinal doctrine. So much is this the case that 
we exhibit a tendency to lose sight of it as a 
doctrine, and regard it as being a question of 
policy, or even of expediency. The line of 
cleavage in opinion as to the question does not 
separate denominations as such, but it has more 
or less significance in all denominations. This 
whole question has also been broadened by the 
advance on the part of woman being all along 
the line of life. In politics, in moral and social 
reforms, as well as in the church, she occupies 
a larger field than ever before. While the 
Christian consciousness has to do with her 
place in society, it is nevertheless true that this 



184 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

is primarily and principally a sociological and 
ethical problem. But when Ave discuss the 
place given to women in the past, and won 
by women in the present, in church life and 
work, we are on distinctively Christian terri- 
tory ; and the question becomes at once doc- 
trinal, moral, and ethical. It is in the province 
of the Christian consciousness. From what has 
been said in some of the preceding chapters of 
this book, it will be evident that, no matter 
what the personal opinion of the author on this 
question may be, in the study of it as related to 
the Christian consciousness our object is not to 
support or to attack this movement for the eman- 
cipation of the sex, commonly called the weaker. 
Nor is it necessary that we should critically 
examine the argument from Scripture. But, on 
the other hand, I have no hesitation in the 
expression of my personal belief and conviction 
that, so far as the logic of the matter is con- 
cerned, the Presbyterian Church of the United 
States was consistently -right in taking to task 
a prominent divine, still living, for admitting a 
woman into his pulpit. This matter is not 
new. It has always been in the church. The 
teaching of Paul is explicit and definite. There 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH 185 

was an exception to his rule which he himself 
tacitly recognizes, and which the church has 
always been, on sufficient evidence, ready to 
recognize. This exception is the recognition 
of the divine afflatus and inspiration 1 descend- 
ing upon a woman, and thus giving her a com- 
mission which set aside all earthly rules; but 
this was made the exception which proved the 
rule. Miriam, Deborah, and Anna in sacred 
story, and possibly some names in profane his- 
tory, might be added as illustrating the pro- 
phetic utterance. But the Pauline dictum was 
the rule. 

Macaulay, in his review of Von Ranke's " His- 
tory of the Popes," draws attention, with all his 
usual eloquence, to the wisdom of Rome in 
providing moral and spiritual safety-valves for 
devout and enthusiastic women. Like all the 
rest of the world, she knew that woman's place 
was in the home, where she could influence for 
good the coarser nature of the husband, and 
train her children to be good Christians and 
good citizens; but there were many women who 
were practically homeless. They had neither 
husband nor children. And there were others 

1 Joel ii. 28, 29. 



186 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

whose hearts were buried in the graves of their 
beloved dead, and in their souls they shrank 
from the possibility of another earthly love like 
this buried love. And there were still others 
who were stirred with other ambitions and 
other longings, and home life and home duties 
of the ordinary routine could not hold them. 
Rome, in her wisdom, made provision for such 
cases. The cloistered nun could shut out the 
world of which she was a-weary, and in prayer 
and vigil pass her days, or with nimble fingers 
and deft skill she sewed altar cloths and priestly 
vestments. The teaching nun could devote 
herself to a life that was at once religious and 
practical, while the Sisters of Mercy were the 
trained nurses of the past. To be sure, the 
church blundered occasionally, and women blun- 
dered occasionally. 

It would have been better for Jeanne d'Arc 
if she had remained quietly with her few sheep 
in the wilderness, but it would not have been as 
well for France. The fifteenth century burns 
her as a heretic, and the nineteenth canonizes 
her. But it was simply impossible for the 
Maid of Orleans to stay at home. Abraham 
had to move at the Divine Voice. The magi 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE ClIURCII 187 

must follow the star, and Jeanne had to run on 
God's errand. When women in the bosom of 
Protestantism felt this tugging at their heart- 
strings, for over two centuries, they had to sit 
still in the bitterness of defeat, or they had to 
risk their social standing and fair fame. 

Robinson of Leyden, of Pilgrim Father fame, 
was, for his time, a liberal and fair-minded 
man. His testimony is significant. The church 
in London had written to Robinson and to his 
church about several things ; among the others, 
this question as to woman's place in the church. 
His reply is dated at Leyden, fifth April, 1624. 
To their specific question " whether women 
have voices with men in the judgment of the 
church," he replies : " The apostle teacheth 
plainly the contrary (Cor. xiv. 34 ; 1 Tim. ii. 
14) ; and though he speaks particularlie of 
prophesying and teaching, yet layes he down a 
more general rule, forbidding all such speaking 
as in which authority is used, that is usurped 
over the man, which is done speciallie in judg- 
ments. And if a woman may not so much as 
move a question in the church for her instruc- 
tion, how much less may she give a voice, or 
utter reproof for censure." In another work, 



188 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

" The People's Plea," he grants that she may 
teach outside the church, as the woman of 
Samaria did. The prohibition as regards women 
is in his opinion perpetual. 

The history of the emancipation of woman 
has yet to be written ; and when it finds a worthy 
historian, the world will have an opportunity of 
studying a social, moral, and doctrinal evolution 
of a very instructive character. Ordinary 
school teaching was almost entirely in the hands 
of men, not only in mixed schools, but also in 
those devoted to the education of girls. The 
dames' school for little children was tolerated. 
That the wife of the teacher in the higher class 
school should assist her husband was tolerated, 
just as the storekeeper's or shopkeeper's wife 
could assist her husband, or the daughter her 
father, long before they had advanced to the 
freedom of hiring female assistants. The in- 
vasion of the common or district schools of New 
England by women was an unheralded and 
noiseless revolution ; and more and more of the 
wOrk of teaching both sexes is being done 
by women. The opening of other avenues 
of usefulness was a question of time, and time 
was on their side ; but their champions of their 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN TUE CHURCH 189 

own and of the other sex had their work cut out 
for them by an unsparing criticism, which, when 
other argument failed, could always fall back, 
and very frequently did fall back, upon that 
moral and social scarecrow which was called an 
unsexed woman. But woman won her way ; and 
it is only due to her place in this great social 
evolution to testify to the dignity and purity of 
the great leaders. It is natural and to be ex- 
pected that any propaganda of this kind will 
draw to it the erratic, and those whose zeal out- 
runs their discretion ; but there has been less 
extravagance, less " bad form," as the world 
puts it, in this movement than in the total ab- 
stinence crusade, or in the abolition movement. 
The church helped on the work by laying all 
unconsciously certain broad and deep founda- 
tions. Sunday-schools must be taught ; and 
there was too often a dearth of men, and an 
abundance of willing female teachers ; and so 
they took a prominent place in the Sunday- 
school. Missionaries had wives ; and these good 
women not only helped their husbands, but 
they wrote home sad stories of their heathen 
sisters' ignorance, and of the almost impossibility 
of the missionary being able to approach them. 



190 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

Sex was an impossible barrier to this zenana or 
harem life. Then, why not send out women 
missionaries, who could mingle with their sister 
women, and teach to them and preach to them 
the story of the Cross ? They were sent ; and 
after a few years' service they came back on 
furlough, and told to delighted audiences of 
women their story of work done ; and ere long 
they addressed mixed audiences, and were even 
invited to occupy the pulpits on Sunday to give 
information concerning their work. To form 
women's missionary societies at home, with 
their own managers, secretaries, and treasurers, 
was an easy and natural step ; for should they 
not work for and correspond with their sisters 
who were at the front in this holy war ? It was 
only one step more for women to study medi- 
cine, whether to practise at home or to be 
medical missionaries in India. If any one 
imagines that all these developments came about 
easily and naturally, they have only to read the 
current religious newspapers of those times to 
know that every inch of the ground was gained 
very quietly, but in the face of opposition. 

It was not in the nature of woman to make 
this a selfish fight. She sought her own rights, 



WOMAN '8 PLACE IN THE CHURCH 191 

her own enfranchisement, and she is seeking 
them now, in so far as they are not yet secured ; 
but the organized action of woman in favor of 
social purity and of Christian temperance gives 
them a prominent place among the social re- 
formers of the day. 

But perhaps the most far-reaching and signifi- 
cant movement affecting woman's place in the 
church is yet in its infancy. The Young 
People's Society of Christian Endeavor has 
been heartily accepted and adopted by the vari- 
ous denominations ; and even those denomina- 
tions that have not seen lit to join this army, 
and march under its banner, have paid it 
the sincere homage of imitation, and have 
banded their young people together on almost 
similar lines of constitution and of work. Now, 
this organization recognizes the absolute equal- 
ity of the sexes in taking part in speaking and 
in praying, in holding office, and in conducting 
their services. In passing, attention may be 
called to the fact, that a similar condition of 
affairs exists in the Salvation Arm}-. Is it not 
reasonable and to be expected that the lessons 
learned in the ranks of the Christian Endeavor 
Society will be, ere long, carried forward into 



192 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

the other departments of church life and work? 
Only a few years ago, and the doors of all our 
great universities were closed to women. Co- 
education and university training are now, to 
a large extent, within the reach of women in 
England and America. If some ambitious and 
devout Salvation lass, or Christian Endeavor 
young woman, should knock at the doors of 
our great theological schools, where, in wisdom, 
in fairness, or by all analogy, can the line 
be drawn ? and when intellectually and spirit- 
ually equipped for the work of the ministry, 
what then? The ranks of law and medicine 
have been successfully invaded, and why should 
not the ranks of the preachers also open and 
welcome the elect and consecrated woman? 
You quote St. Paul. Of course he would be 
quoted and interpreted, and church history 
would be searched, as it has been, and the 
deliverances of synods and conferences and 
assemblies would be quoted; but the jewel 
of consistency has been thrown away by the 
church. If her exegesis of St. Paul is correct, 
she has conceded far too much already. In 
fact, the church in Britain and in America is 
responsible for the advanced stage of this ques- 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH 193 

tion about the rights of woman, even if there 
is not a disposition to take the credit of the 
work. This beginning with the church is a 
hopeful sign, a veritable token for good in this 
cause. The order in which a revolution evolves 
indicates, and in a sense determines, its charac- 
ter. The French Revolution was first social, 
then political, and thirdly religious. The Eng- 
lish Revolution was first religious, second social, 
and third political. The French Revolution 
produced Revolution number two in 1848, and 
the miserable beginning and ending of Louis 
Napoleon. The English Revolution produced 
the Reform Bill and the Victorian era. It is 
a sign for good, and a promise of success — 
this beginning of the emancipation of woman 
in the church. 

While the whole question of woman's place 
in the life and work in the church, as well as in 
the political arena and in the social sphere, is 
still, as it were, on trial, it will be conceded by 
those who have given it earnest study and 
attention, that much has been gained, not 
because of current or past interpretation of 
Scripture, but against it. The Christian con- 
sciousness lias thus far been on the side of this 



194 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

movement. It has given its sanction to the 
spirit of the age, and it has done its part in cre- 
ating the spirit of the age. The popular phrase, 
"It is m the air," is accepted as explaining 
much ; but while it is a very graphic description 
of a condition of things, it explains nothing. A 
correct science of physical or moral existence 
seeks after the efficient cause or causes of phe- 
nomena. Whence came this nebulous and par- 
tially defined thing that is in the air ? Its 
existence, perhaps, can be accounted for. So- 
cial and moral evolution take us back very near 
to the origin, but they do not explain the gene- 
sis of it. Benjamin Kidd will tell us that it 
is not in the nature of man, the stronger, to part 
with any of his power or privilege to woman, 
the weaker ; and that he does so only because of 
the ethical compulsion of the ultra-rational sanc- 
tion which religion provides, and which causes 
this altruism. We can accept all this, with the 
addition that the altruistic sentiment has its 
origin in the Christian consciousness. Pro- 
fessor Drummond exalts the evolution of love, 
and in consistence with his philosophy will 
show how man rises by slow degrees to do 
justice to those whom he loves. We can accept 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH 195 

this also, and add that the Christian conscious- 
ness opens the blind eyes of love, and enables it 
to see duty and justice. 

A good many years ago George MacDonald 
said that it was not for man to say what 
woman should do and should not do. It was 
for women themselves to determine what was 
right and what was wrong. As we quote 
from memoiy, there is no approach to verbal 
accuracy in this reference ; and, of course, there 
is the danger of even misstating the sentiment. 
He maintains that good women will find out 
what is their province. This suggests an in- 
teresting method of arriving at results. Sup- 
pose the question at issue were whether or 
not women should have every suffrage that 
man possesses in political life. They vote 
as to whether or not they want to vote. In 
such a case a majority of those who cast their 
votes would not be a satisfactory settlement, 
because it can readily be supposed that those 
opposed to voting would decline to vote, even 
on this general issue. But if a majority of 
the whole were to signify their desire to pos- 
sess the suffrage, by what right, but that of 
the strongest, would man refuse to accede to 



196 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

their request. Should a case arise in the 
church, and the desire of women to exercise 
any function now denied to them, be clearly 
expressed, this wish of Christian women would 
be an expression of the results arrived at by 
their Christian consciousness. Suppose such 
an issue to come, and the result were to dem- 
onstrate that the Christian consciousness of men 
was opposed to the Christian consciousness of 
women. Who would decide? and to what final 
court of appeal could the conflicting parties go ? 
An old-fashioned proverb speaks of the folly 
of jumping the fence before we come to it. 
Such a case has not yet emerged. 

Many advocates of women's rights in the 
church and in the state would not be pre- 
pared to accept some of the positions indicated. 
With a good show of reason they would argue 
that, though the majority of women were not 
in favor of women practising law or medicine, 
or of voting for political offices, that is not 
sufficient reason for those who wished to do 
so having the privilege or right taken from 
them. They might say that it is not a ques- 
tion of majorities, but a question of inalienable 
right. But the inalienable right that has not 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH 197 

the sanction and permission of the majority 
is not in the field of practical life. The right 
that is enjoyed by snffrance, whether it be 
the right of the early Christians to meet for 
worship with the shadow of paganism on them, 
or the right of the women of the nineteenth 
century to vote for members of Congress, may 
be enjoyed, and may be a source of gratifica- 
tion ; but it only emphasizes the capricious 
tyranny that bestows it. There is no ultimate 
social or ethical good in it. Women's Rights 
is, after all, the correct term. In the region 
of the spiritual, the Christian consciousness 
discerns rights and demands rights. Privi- 
leges can take care of themselves. A half- 
loaf is often better than no bread, but the 
right that is conferred as a privilege is a kind 
of moral insult. 

The reader of " Gesta Christi," by Charles 
Loring Brace, will find a very interesting chap- 
ter on " The Position of Woman under Modern 
Influences ; " and, although the author of that 
interesting work does not draw special atten- 
tion to the fact, it is nevertheless obvious 
that every step in advance that has been gained 
by woman towards the Christian idea of her 



198 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

perfect equality with man in rights and in re- 
sponsibilities lias been secured grudgingly and 
unwillingly from man. The Christian con- 
sciousness which secured the ultra-rational al- 
truistic sentiment was a moral compulsion 
before which the triple walls of strength, self- 
ishness, and custom had to fall. 

It is often claimed that there are two re- 
markable exceptions to this general rule, — in 
the case of woman in religious communities, 
and woman in the age of chivalry. I think 
the exceptions are more imaginary than real. 
In the seclusion of the religious community, 
there was self-government subject to the su- 
premacy of the ecclesiastical authorities of the 
other sex. The outer world for centuries hon- 
ored them for the sake of their work and life. 
They let the world alone ; and the world let 
them alone, except when their broad acres and 
fair possessions stirred the cupidity of some 
robber baron, until he braved the church and 
risked his soul for the sake of present pos- 
session. 

The age of chivalry has around it the glamour 
of romance, and it has proved a veritable mine 
of wealth to all writers of the romantic school. 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH 199 

Even the sage historians seem at times to revel 
in it, and to regard it as an oasis in a dreary 
desert of superstition, violence, and bloodshed. 
And this not without reason ; for so long as 
barons, knights, and squires exalted women, 
paying sometimes a fanciful, and sometimes a 
real reverence, as in a boy's game where it is 
hard to tell where make-believe ends and reality 
begins, the love was idealized that might easily 
have been brutalized; and the lower ranks of 
society, ever ready to copy from their social 
superiors, would learn something of courtesy. 1 
" To chivalry woman is indebted in the Middle 
Ages for a position she had never before enjoyed 
in history, which gave her a charm almost 
unknown till then, and which spread over a 
society steeped in barbarism a grace and re- 
finement that have come down to our day." 
But after all, chivalry made women the counters 
with which men played at a game called chiv- 
alry. The tournament and the lists were a 
combination of the modern duel and athletic 
sports, and the knight-errant was not always 
the hero that Sir Walter Scott delights to 
portray. He was too often a soldier of for- 

1 Gesta Christi, page 284. 



200 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

tune, a skilled swordsman, who was to the 
Middle Ages what the gladiator was to the 
Roman, what the prize-ring and college foot- 
ball are to nineteenth century civilization. 

The benefit that it was to woman was in- 
cidental and accidental. Chivalry refined man- 
ners, but it did not accelerate justice. There 
was no Christian consciousness in it. But to- 
day the Christian consciousness has done its 
work, and woman has a place, and exercises 
functions, in the most conservative ecclesiasti- 
cal bodies, which would have been promptly 
refused her fifty years ago ; and the refusal 
would have been, and actually was, based upon 
the interpretation of the Scriptures which bore 
upon her case. The old exegesis was sound. 
It is as good now as it was then. The silence 
of confessions, catechisms, books of discipline, 
and articles of religion, on this question — the 
comparative silence — is accounted for b} T the 
simple fact that the necessity for an}- strong 
declaration was not even dreamed of. The 
Christian consciousness has been at work, and 
changes have been possible that have not been 
sanctioned in any other way. The end is not 
yet. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note the 



WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE CHURCH 201 

effort being made by that class of interpreters 
who begin by opposing a new movement, and 
have scarcely finished their effort to show that 
it is unscriptural, when they awake to the fact 
that this intruder has come to stay. Then it is 
in order to reconstruct their interpretation of 
Scripture on the question ; and if the hands 
would go backward on the world clock, they, 
too, could fall back on their former exegesis. 



202 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE 
SIXTH COMMANDMENT 

Man has been defined as a fighting animal ; 
and the most perplexing problem in moral and 
social evolution as well as in the function of 
the Christian consciousness, is presented to us 
by his readiness, in sport or in earnest, for 
pecuniary gain or for reputation, in proof of 
innocence or in desire for revenge, to fight 
with and to kill some other man. The thirst 
for blood, for exhibitions of physical and men- 
tal horrors in the arena, went hand in hand 
in Rome with the enjoyment of undisguised 
sensuality and indecency. Christianity waged 
war against this spirit and practice of the age; 
but the evil that appeals, not only to the baser 
passions of man, but also to sentiments that 
are akin to virtue, dies hard. Why should 
we express any surprise at its taking the 
church so long to suppress the bloody scenes 
of the amphitheatre in Rome and in the great 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 203 

provincial cities? It was an evil inheritance 
which had come down through centuries of 
heathenism. The Decalogue thundered, " Thou 
shalt not kill ; " and Jesus gave the positive 
command, "Therefore, all things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them ; " 1 but the red stream of inno- 
cent blood has ever been flowing. It began 
at the gates of Eden, and flowed on and on, a 
river of death, until the blood shed at Calvary 
fell into it; and the river is still flowing, and 
greedily drinking up the blood of the many 
murdered for robbery's sake, or in the duel, 
or in the sport that wantonly and uselessly 
risks man's life, or in that game of war which 
makes Europe a vast camp of armed men. 

In Christian Europe, every Christmas morn- 
ing comes with its story of the Prince of peace ; 
and its joy-bells ring in the ears of five million 
Christians of a real or nominal kind, who are 
armed and willing, sometimes anxious, to fly 
at each other's throats. The poet sa} r s that, 
"Were the people wiser, war is a game kings 
would not play at ; " but the pity of it is that 
the people seem to be as fond of it as are the 
kings. 

i Matt. vii. 12. 



204 THE CIIBISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

The United States, removed from the arena 
of European conflict and interests, with a con- 
tinent so great in extent and in variety of cli- 
mate and of natural products that there was no 
need of war for enlarging her territory, seemed 
to be the one nation that could dispense with a 
vast standing army and have no dread of war ; 
and yet perhaps the most religious and the 
most intelligent nation on the face of the 
earth, so far as the general diffusion of knowl- 
edge is concerned, drifts into a war, an inter- 
necine war, of unparalleled dimensions. After 
the hot carnage of four years, peace came 
from the exhaustion of one of the combatants ; 
and the nation resumes its interrupted life, 
and with the real cause of the strife, slavery, 
abolished. A marvellous spectacle truly ; but 
more wonderful still is the fact that thirty 
years after the strife is over, both parties pro- 
fess to glory in the part that they or their 
fathers took, and the divisions among the fol- 
lowers of the Prince of peace which had their 
orio-in in this Cain and Abel fioht are in exist- 
ence still. This is a moral and religious prob- 
lem which might be studied more earnestly 
with advantage to the cause of religion. ■ 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 205 

" Peace on earth" was the song of the host 
at the Annunciation. While we do not mini- 
mize the good that has been accomplished, the 
peace that lias been promoted between factions 
and nations by the genius of Christianity, — the 
strifes that have been healed have been many, 
and peace that passeth understanding has 
come to longing souls in every age, — yet, in its 
larger outlook, Christianity has been more of 
a failure in this thing of which the angels sang 
than in any other department of morals. So 
much is this the case, so obviously is it true, 
that many writers on morals and on social 
and political economy have tried to prove 
that war is unavoidable, is necessary, is prof- 
itable to civilization as a whole. They hold 
that it is quite proper that the Christian 
should add to his good fight of faith against 
spiritual foes, a good deal of readiness for 
war in general. To prove that an overrul- 
ing Providence sometimes brings good out of 
war, as lie does out of other forms of evil, is 
simply a demonstration of the happy truth 
that he can make the wrath of man to praise 
him. The crreater contains the less. If it is 
right for Germany and France to go to war 



206 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

to settle a difficulty, why should it be wrong 
for the individual Frenchman and German to 
settle their personal dispute by war which 
may take the shape of assassination or of the 
duel, and yet resemble national warfare ? We 
are told that these belligerent individuals are 
inexcusable because they have legal redress, 
and at once can have recourse to it. But this 
assurance at once causes one to wonder how 
it comes to pass that nineteen centuries of 
Christianity have not devised a court of arbi- 
tration to which nations could resort, and the 
decisions of which could be enforced. 

The church of history has in a feeble and 
half-hearted manner been on the side of 
peace. There has always existed a certain 
amount of Christian consciousness in favor 
of peace, but it took a long time for it to 
find expression in the " Peace Society." And 
when the society was at last evolved, it was 
in advance of the age, as witness the ridicule 
which was heaped upon its efforts by a large 
part of the public press. It concerned no 
dogma which divided sects, unless, indeed, 
we ought to give due credit to all the sects 
of the quietists who conscientiously refuse to 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 207 

fight. It did not come to^ the hearts and 
homes of men as slavery or intemperance did. 
The young hero going to the wars, and the 
old veteran covered with medals, scars, and 
glory, were both good to look upon. War 
was linked to patriotism and personal cour- 
age, and these are words to conjure with. 
When one man kills another for an acre of 
ground in dispute between them, the sooner 
the hangman is called in the better for society; 
but when opposing armies of a hundred thou- 
sand men decimate each other's ranks about 
some trivial territory or debatable point of 
honor, call it glory, burn bonfires, ring joy- 
bells, reward the survivors, praise the dead 
heroes, and make read}?- for another fight. 
Meanwhile, let us sing and preach and pray 
about the Prince of peace, for we are Christian 
nations. 

Not only was there little or no Christian 
consciousness in favor of enforcing the sixth 
command of the Decalogue, it was almost 
altogether ignored. The death penalty was 
inflicted for comparatively trifling offences 
against property ; and when the laws which 
made so little of human life were gradually 



208 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

taken from the statute-book, it was the se- 
verity of the punishment more than any con- 
sideration of the inherent dignity and value 
of life as life, which led to the amelioration. 

The judicial combat was on the crude sup- 
position that the divine judgment would be 
indicated by the result of the duel between the 
parties. If this appeal had taken the form of 
drawing lots as to which of the combatants 
should commit suicide, there would have been 
lottery in it. Napoleon is said to have re- 
marked that Providence usually seemed to be 
on the side of the heaviest artillery ; and in an 
age when physical strength had so much to do 
with the result of the fight, the absurdity of 
this form of settlement of personal feud must 
have been painfully apparent. It was a corrup- 
tion of the old practice of the avenger of blood ; 
and the church, with her rights of asylum and 
sanctuar}*-, was to the feudal times what the 
city of refuge was to the Israelite in the time of 
the Judges. The judicial duel spread through 
Europe ; and the church spoke against it for 
two hundred years before we find any civil 
enactment against it. The judicial duel did 
not altogether disappear until the seventeenth 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 209 

century. In fact, the wager of battle in certain 
cases came down to the beginning of the 
present century ; and it was not legally abolished 
in England until 1819. The case in which it 
was so long permitted was the right to chal- 
lenge any one acquitted of murder to the ordeal 
of single combat, the challenger being a relative 
of the murdered person. 

The duel, the so-called field of honor, survives 
in all Christian countries, and only in some of 
them is it illegal. It has been said of it, 
" That there is no foolish thing so wicked, and 
no wicked thing so foolish." When the results 
are notoriously harmless, as in certain encoun- 
ters in France, all the world laughs. When 
good men are killed by less worthy foes, all 
the world cries shame, and declares that the 
duelist is only a remove from the assassin. 
But the practice continues, and personal honor 
is the plea and excuse and justification. The 
prize-ring in England was quite as dangerous 
an institution as was the duel in France and 
Germany. British and American college boys 
run more risk of personal injury in the foot- 
ball field than do the much padded and care- 
fully protected members of the fighting corps 



210 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

of certain German universities. Pugilism dies 
hard in English schools and in English and 
American athletics. The spice of danger, 
whether in riding after fox-hounds or in hunt- 
ing tigers, is the exciting and pleasurable ele- 
ment in the sport. In providing amusement 
for the public, every showman knows that the 
feat that attracts is one in which the performer 
not only shows skill, but runs the risk of break- 
ing his neck. We all like to sup on horrors of 
some kind or other. Let us confess it : we 
are a fighting race. The blood of warlike Nor- 
mans and pirate Danes and stubborn Saxons 
and fiery Celts is in our veins ; and in our secret 
souls cowardice is worse than minor crime. 
The thoughtless infliction of cruelty, and the 
stoical enduring of it when it comes to ourselves, 
is in the nature of us. 

In the case of slavery and intemperance (in 
morals), and also in the case of the salvation 
of infants and of the heathen (in doctrine), 
we drew attention to the fact that the Christian 
consciousness asserted its sway, and brought 
positive convictions and moral certainty, where 
from the standpoint of biblical exegesis and 
criticism there was room for diversity of 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 211 

opinion. But here we have a positive com- 
mandment, one of the ten, habitually dis- 
regarded both in its letter and in its spirit. I 
knew a small boy who was, when at school, 
quite ready and willing to gratify the desire 
of the older pupils to get up a fight. When 
that boy went home bearing marks of the fray, 
if he had been beaten by a lad of his own age, 
or if lie had suffered defeat at the hands of a 
smaller boy, he was usually soundly punished 
by an indignant parent for his misconduct, and 
for Lis quarrelsome disposition. But there were 
occasions on which he was a much disfigured 
boy with only one thing to console him, namely, 
lie had succeeded in thrashing a bigger boy 
than himself in a more or less artistic fashion, 
and on these occasions the boy was gravely 
scolded, but not whipped, at home ; and he came 
to know that the following day was the best 
time to make an appeal to his father for pocket- 
money. The pugnacity of the race, its inborn 
admiration of courage and endurance, retarded 
the development of the Christian consciousness. 
The merciful provisions of the Mosaic statute- 
book with regard to the lower animals did not 
produce societies for the prevention of cruelty 



212 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

to animals until the modern period. The 
modern pugilist on the stage will draw, not 
the same audience, but as large an audience, 
as a Patti or a Booth ; and it apparently pays 
some clubs to pay many thousand dollars to 
two professional pugilists and rivals for the 
championship to settle the matter under their 
auspices and within their doors. 

All healthy men and boys, and also all 
healthy women and girls, delight in stories of 
personal daring and endurance. Realism holds 
up a picture of life, and we say it is artistic. 
Idealism pictures life as it ought to be, or as it 
might be, and we say it is suggestive or charm- 
ing. Romanticism pictures life in its heroic 
possibilities and impossibilities, and we say it is 
glorious. Revelation is realistic. No modern 
realist can improve upon the sententious 
brevity with which the good and evil of Noah, 
Abraham, Jacob, David, and others are related. 
It is idealistic, for running through the Word is 
the silver thread of a life that ought to be ; and 
it is romantic, for its heroes and martyrs can 
thrill the soul. We cannot eradicate the ad- 
miration for strength and beauty, for they find 
a place in the presence chamber of God. Woe 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 213 

to the nation in whose schools and colleges 
athletic sports find no place, and whose people 
do not delight in manly sports ! But the de- 
light must consist in participating in them, not 
in merely looking on as spectators. When 
Greece and Rome were in their glory, their 
youth contended in the games. When they 
were in their corrupt decadence, they looked on 
while slaves fought with each other or with 
wild beasts for their amusement. The curse of 
professionalism is on the manly sports of our 
day ; and professionalism says to the average 
citizen, " Pay } T our gate-money, and look on 
and applaud, and make your bets, and leave the 
athletics to our hired professionals." It may 
appear strange that popular amusements and 
the relation of the Christian consciousness to 
them should be related to the sixth command- 
ment ; but if the supreme attraction is the ele- 
ment of danger, and the skill which avoids the 
danger, the connection is at once apparent. 

The whole question of the relation of the 
Christian consciousness to pain and suffering 
and death of man and the lower animals is in 
the crudest possible shape. Is there, or is there 
not, any connection between cruelty to others 



214 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

and indifference to danger in ourselves ? Does 
the practice of torturing others make man more 
stoical in the enduring of physical pain ? Let 
us suppose that the Christian ideal of the more 
advanced Christian consciousness were to be- 
come the rule of life. Nations have really 
beaten their swords into ploughshares, and their 
spears into pruning-hooks ; "they learn the art 
of war no more." It is not the Millennium, and 
we have still a vigorous and effective police ; 
but there is not a standing army within the 
borders of Christendom. The duel has become 
a thing of the past. Manly sports are culti- 
vated, and the g} 7 mnasiums of colleges, Young 
men's Christian Associations, and other organi- 
zations, are well patronized ; but a vigorous and 
successful effort has been made to so regulate 
exhibitions and games that the risk to life and 
limb has been reduced to a minimum. Profes- 
sionalism has been regulated as far as law can ; 
and the legislation against gambling, pool-sell- 
ing, and betting has been so rigidly enforced 
that the amusements, if there Avere an}', that 
could not exist without gambling, have disap- 
peared. This is no impossible Utopia. It is a 
condition of things which we can imagine to 



TUE SIXTII COMMANDMENT 215 

exist twenty -five years hence, and to have been 
brought about without any moral or social con- 
vulsion. What would be the result upon the 
character of man ? Would there be a loss in 
manliness and in courage ? This has been 
boldly asserted by many writers. But it is 
difficult to find any reason for such conjecture. 
The increased estimate of the sacredness of 
human life would lift to a higher popular esti- 
mate the daring of our fire brigades and our 
life-boat service. A venerable Irishman of my 
acquaintance was in his youth so impressed 
with the dangers of coal-mining in the North of 
England, that with a due and prudent regard 
for his own personal comfort and safety, he 
enlisted in the British army, went through the 
whole of the Crimean war, and came out of it a 
sergeant with medals for distinguished service ; 
and when he revisited the scenes of his youth, 
and heard of the accidents of various kinds, and 
witnessed the havoc that had been made in 
the ranks of his former associates, he came to 
the conclusion that his decision had been 
wise on the mere grounds of personal safety, 
even though he had fought in the Crimea 
and in the Indian mutiny. Peace has her 



216 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

battles, her victories, and her heroes, as well 
as war. 

In the closing chapter of his " History of 
Humane Progress," C. Loring Brace expresses 
his belief that his histoiy shows the existence 
of "A moral force producing certain definite 
though small results during a certain period of 
time, and of a nature adapted to produce in- 
definite similar results in unlimited time." 1 He 
very justly claims that the granting of these 
premises proves Christianity to be the ultimate 
system of morals. His " moral force " is 
neither more nor less than the Christian con- 
sciousness ; or granting that this power — not 
ourselves — outside of ourselves — which makes 
for righteousness — the moral force, being not 
ourselves, and outside ourselves, is not and can- 
not be Christian consciousness. Such a power 
is supernatural and ultra-rational, and it can 
find its expression only in the Christian con- 
sciousness. Philosophy provides the mechan- 
ism, and religion provides the motive-power, for 
all moral progress. The Christian conscious- 
ness discerns and applies the motive-power. 
Why was there so little development in morals 

1 Page 469. 



THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 217 

until the Reformation ? There was no lack of 
philosophy; but it was neglected for scholasti- 
cism, and there was no motive-power in the 
church. It is one of the great engimas of the 
history of mind and morals, that Plato's " Re- 
public " should have had so little influence 
upon the social, moral, and ethical life of the 
world. For two thousand years the world had 
this masterpiece, and not till these two millen- 
niums had come and gone, did its lofty thought 
begin to blend with Christian culture in better- 
ing the life of man. 

I may be permitted to remind the reader of 
the main contention and design of this chapter. 
In our previous instances and illustrations of 
the relation of the Christian consciousness to 
evolution in morals and in doctrine, I have 
endeavored to show that the Christian con- 
sciousness, in its apprehension of God and in 
its conception of his character, led the way, or 
gave its sanction, to evolution and development 
in morals and in doctrine which sometimes 
seemed to antagonize our creeds and disregard 
our exegesis. But in this chapter we have 
considered certain phases of life, all bearing on 
the letter or on the spirit of the sixth command 



218 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

of the Decalogue, in which the Christian con- 
sciousness not only seems to be at times inop- 
erative, but at other times seems to retard the 
church in her pronouncements against certain 
moral and social evils. That the Christian con- 
sciousness should play such a part does not in- 
terfere with our acceptance of the belief in its 
existence and in its activity. It enables us to 
hail the signs of its awakening in the directions 
indicated as the dawn of a better day in the 
life of the world. 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 219 



CHAPTER XII 

OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 

Evolution or development in morals is de- 
nied by some who are recognized champions of 
orthodoxy, as that word is used from the Prot- 
estant point of view. This has been made easy 
by its natural opposition to the ethical and 
moral systems which profess to improve upon 
and to supplant the Christian system. Since 
these non-Christian systems all hold to the 
evolution of morals, is not the contrary true 
of Christian morality ? To many minds, evo- 
lution in morals appears to be a playing fast 
and loose with the everlasting right and wrong. 
It is rhetorically convincing to assert that 
rig-ht can never become wrong. That is true 
so far as it is said regarding God's estimate 
of things ; but, as a matter of fact, history 
tells us that so far as men are concerned, the 
thing that was right two hundred years ago 
is wrong to-day. To this it may be replied 
that slavery, drinking customs, and certain 



220 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

harsher dogmas, were wrong then, as they are 
now, but that men did not know any better. 
It is man's thought that changes, not God's 
thought. God's supreme wisdom is not in 
question. Moral philosophy is the science of 
human conduct, not of the divine administra- 
tion. So far as man fe concerned, evolution is 
as true in moral as it is in social and in physical 
life ; and evolution in morals implies evolution 
in doctrine, for life of the consistent self- 
respecting kind must always be the outcome 
of that which a man believes. The following 
quotation may be taken as fairly representing 
the school of thought to which we refer. It 
is a form of apologetic that one shrinks from 
attacking, because one feels either that he 
does not understand, or that he himself is not 
understood: — 

" But moral laws — whatever has been our 
progress in the knowledge of mind, of human 
physiology, of climatic influences, of social 
reactions — have made no progress since they 
were laid down by the Author of Christianity. 
Human philosophies, many and able, have been 
propounded — new ones are still propounded — 
as substitutes for the ethics of Christianity; 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 221 

and yet not one of its principles has been 
invalidated, not a new one has been added 
to them. The moral law was long ago com- 
pleted ; its statutes have been established for- 
ever. . . . What the combined ingenuity of 
man has thus been unable to improve, we may 
justly conclude the combined ingenuity of man 
was incapable of originating or of discovering. 
. . . The Almighty made no moral laws, but 
created man in his own image. The moral 
laws of the divine nature were incorporated in 
the nature of man." 1 

If our author means that no moral precept of 
Jesus has been proved to be wrong, or has 
had to be modified or reversed, all Christians, 
and almost all theists, will heartily agree 
with him. If he means that correct morals 
and ethics with regard to slavery, the use of 
stimulants, and the other developments in 
morals to which reference has been made in 
this work, were all wrapped up in the precepts 
and example of Christ, and only waited their 
unfolding, he will again find himself in harmony 
with Christian thinkers and with many theists. 

1 President E. G. Robinson, D.D.,LL.D. Christ and Modern 
Thought. Boston, 1880-81. 



222 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

If he is speaking of the Decalogue, neither 
more nor less, all are agreed. But he uses 
such expressions as "moral laws" and "the 
moral law " as being interchangeable, which 
is certainly a little confusing. When he af- 
firms that the combined ingenuity of man has 
not been able either to originate or to improve 
moral law, we are in hearty accord with him ; 
for the Christian consciousness is not to be 
identified with human ingenuity pure and 
simple, as we have tried to prove. When he 
says that the Almighty made no moral laws, 
but created man in his own image, — " The 
moral laws of the divine nature were incorpo- 
rated in the nature of man," — we accept the 
statement as being a very graphic statement 
of that dignity of man which is the theme of 
the second chapter of this book. But we fail 
to find in these words any proof that there 
has not been an evolution in morals. He 
makes an assertion, and then proceeds to prove 
something else. It is not to be expected that 
Christian or even theist will accept an evo- 
lution in morals having its cause in the " com- 
bined ingenuity of man." In the evolutions or 
development of morals, there can be no recon- 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 223 

ciliation of science and religion by any philos- 
ophy or course of reasoning which ignores or 
denies the Christian consciousness. It was ab- 
solutely necessary that he should assert that 
moral laws had " made no progress since they 
were laid down by the Author of Christianity ; " 
for if they had their origin in " the infinitely 
perfect nature of a supreme and archetypal 
being,'' how could change be possible? But 
it is easy to imagine, and also easy to prove, 
that God left man an undiscovered country 
in matter, intellect, and morals, to which he 
Avas to apply the powers with which God had 
endowed him, and in which he has made no- 
table progress. 

There is a meretricious kind of rhetoric, with 
which, however, we are far from associating the 
learned author whose opinions we have been 
considering, which takes a loud and long de- 
light in assuring the public that the Lord's 
Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Ser- 
mon on the Mount can never cease to be the 
very voice of God to us struggling, sinning, 
repenting, and aspiring mortals. Of course 
they cannot. Even those agnostics and the- 
ists who refuse to entertain our doctrines con- 



224 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

cerning the inspiration of Scripture are ready 
to confess the surpassing excellence of these 
passages, and their singular adaption to the 
social and moral life of man. We all bow 
in lowliest reverence before Him who spake 
as never man spake. The Decalogue is the 
Magna Charta of the moral order of the world. 
But these three marvellous words do not tell us 
everything. We look in them in vain for the 
morals of slavery, of marriage, of the points of 
submission to and of resistance to civil and 
religious authority. The direct teaching of the 
Word of God is binding on every man, and he 
has to beware how he reads it. The inferential 
teaching, that comes to us in its spirit rather 
than in its letter, is also binding; and we 
have to beware how we reason about it. God 
holds us to a stern and strict accountability. 
Our consciences and his Word agree as to this. 
We are, in the midst of our ethical difficulties 
and moral perplexities, entitled to cry out, 
" Teach me thy law." We can heartily agree 
with Dr. Robinson when he affirms that " the 
moral laws of the divine nature were incorpo- 
rated in the nature of man ; " but with the same 
starting-point we reach an entirely different 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 225 

conclusion. The moral law of the divine na- 
ture, incorporated in the nature of almost all 
the Christian men and women of the South, 
led them to say with all honesty, "Domestic sla- 
very is a Scriptural institution, and the Aboli- 
tionism of the North is atheistical;" and the 
same law led the Christian opponents of slavery 
to say that slavery was the sum of all villanies, 
and was in direct antagonism to the spirit of 
Christ. It is true that murder can never cease 
to be murder ; but the question that changes is 
as to what kinds of killing we shall call murder. 
It is very well to say that moral laws have not 
been changed since they were laid down by the 
author of Christianity, and it would be high 
treason to our King to assert anything to the 
contrary. We do not say (who does say?) 
that any word of Christ's can pass awa}^. Eth- 
ical systems, which ignore religion, have been 
attempted ; but even their contention is not 
with the word or with the spirit of Christ, as 
they are at great pains .to affirm ; but it is with 
the moral systems that have been developed 
in the Christian era. 

It is easy to affirm, and it is not difficult to 
believe, that every possible change for good will 



226 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

be found to be in harmony with the example 
and precepts of Jesus. We can imagine a state 
of society in which drunkenness was very rare, 
in which there were not many requiring charity, 
and when it was required, it was freely given, 
and received without loss of self-respect. We 
can imagine a good time to come, when social 
unrest and discontent will be extremely rare, 
and when the war and greed and violence 
which sometimes mark the relations of labor 
and capital shall have passed away. And we 
believe that it is only the spirit of Christ that 
can secure this. When it does come, those who 
are then living will say that the truth and 
mercy and justice, the altruism and the love, 
which then control the lives of men, were always 
in the teachings of Jesus ; but men's ears were 
stopped so that they could not hear ; and they had 
eyes, but they did not see. All this may be — we 
believe is — true ; but there is an evolution, both 
in morals and in doctrine. This is the simple fact 
of history. We may give it many names. One 
says it is the new light that is ever streaming 
from the Word of life. Another says it is the 
work of the energizing Spirit. It is line upon 
line, precept upon precept. We get truth as 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 227 

we are able to bear it. Development in morals 
as in doctrine does not imply that the original 
type or primal statement of the truth has been 
reversed or changed. Truth is a living thing. 
It is the word of life. Like every living thing, 
it must grow, change, and develop. 

The thought of the finite creature is limited, 
it is not necessarily immortal ; but the thought 
of the infinite One is unlimited and immortal. 
Nor does it live in the unchanging stereotype. 
A prophet of Israel assures us that God dis- 
tinctly declares that his thoughts are unlike 
man's. 1 In what respect are they unlike ? 
There is an infinite difference represented by 
the distance between heaven and earth. That 
is a difference of degree, but there is also a dif- 
ference in kind. The rain and the snow come 
down, and make the earth fertile and life-sus- 
taining. So it is with God's Word. It does 
not return to him void. It accomplishes that 
which he pleases. It never fails to reach the 
point to which it has been sent. This is the 
difference between the divine word and the 
human word. Our words may be meaningless, 
misleading, insincere, truthful, living, or life- 
i Isa. lv. 8-10. 



228 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

less. When God or man speaks a living word, 
it grows. Christ spake as never man spake, 
because they were living words, and they have 
been growing ever since with the bloom of im- 
mortality on them. The Word of God lives 
and abides forever ; but it does not abide in an 
everlasting monotone. It grows because it 
lives. What Dr. Robinson means when lie says, 
" But moral laws — whatever has been our 
progress in the knowledge of mind, of human 
physiology, of climatic influences, of social reac- 
tions — have made no progress since they were 
laid down by the Author of Christianity," is 
hard to determine. 

In the opening lecture of the volume from 
which the quotation under consideration was 
taken, Joseph Cook says : "If we follow the 
mind of the Spirit, we shall utter to our age our 
secret convictions. If we follow the impulse of 
the finger of the Spirit upon our souls, as we 
are differently trained by God's providence and 
by this constant touch of Christ's pierced right 
hand, we shall utter messages so diversified as to 
meet the diversified wants of our age." Joseph 
Cook has himself been the proof of the correct- 
ness of the faith and hope which he expressed 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 229 

in these words fifteen years ago. It is easier 
to harmonize these eloquent words with the 
doctrine of the Christian consciousness and the 
evolution of morals, than to harmonize them 
with the views of Dr. Robinson. 

Sir James Mackintosh anticipated some of the 
problems of to-da} T , when in his study of the 
" Progress of Ethical Philosophy " he said that 
the agreement as to the rule of life was plain. 
The question is as to how men have come to 
agree in the rule of life. He might have, added 
that it was also an interesting study as to how 
men came to disagree in the rule of life. The 
agreement is on a few general principles, and on 
certain abstractions called virtues which men 
persist in denning for their own benefit. Moral 
science always asks the question : " What ought 
to be ? -what is right? what is truth? " She knows 
what the everlasting ought and right and truth 
are; and in the practical application of them she 
makes progress. What is the ought and right 
and truth about this man who denies the things 
that most men believe? Moral science in the 
sixteenth century replies : " The stake, the inqui- 
sition, or, if you will be merciful, fine, imprison- 
ment, and banishment." Moral science to-day 



230 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

says : " Persuasion is lawful ; coercion in every 
form is unlawful." The theologian of the seven- 
teenth century said, as an exegete and as a moral 
philosopher, the Bible teaches the existence of 
witchcraft; it gives both example and precept 
as to the treatment of witches. Certain persons 
are charged with witchcraft here in our midst. 
They are tried, and the evidence is found satis- 
factory as a proof of guilt. What remains to be 
done? Why, only this — that we must honor 
by imitation the Bible method of treating witch- 
craft. The logic is faultless. It was the Chris- 
tian consciousness which rebelled. 

Much might be said about the presence or 
absence of the Christian consciousness in sectari- 
anism. The great majority of men are in the 
religious denomination to which they belong by 
inheritance and by environment. While it can 
be granted that the great majority of each denom- 
ination are intelligently persuaded that theirs 
is the best, or as good as any, their conviction 
did not lead them into their particular fold, 
although it may help to keep them there. We 
grant the scholarship and honesty of the founders 
of Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, Congregational- 
ism, Methodism, etc. But they cannot all be 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 231 

right. It may be that not one of them is right. 
We grant the honesty and the scholarship of the 
contemporary champions of these sects. Bnt 
we cannot believe that the Spirit has led any 
sect into the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth ; although ardent apologists are 
ready to claim all this for each of them. When 
the Christian consciousness is developed, the 
oneness for which the Christ prayed will come. 
There is spiritual law in the natural world. 
We are, as denominations and as congregations, 
apart from each other, because we are apart from 
Christ our Life and our Kin^. Were He to 
appear on some swelling mount in the midst of 
a vast prairie, and were the world gathered round 
to greet the King. All eyes are fixed upon the 
mount of vision. From north, south, east, and 
west they look up to this hill of God. When 
at last the vision of his beauty and his glory fills 
their eyes and their hearts, by the mighty power 
of love they are moved to take some steps nearer 
to the mount on which the} r behold the shining 
feet of the Son of God. By these steps towards 
a common centre, they are every man drawn 
nearer to every other man. The nearer we are 
to Christ, the nearer we must be to each other. 



232 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

Grindelwald Conferences, Evangelical Alliances, 
and Committees on Union, appointed by different 
denominations, are all very good ; but they are 
all empiric, except in so far as they help the 
development of that fulness of the Christian 
consciousness which will make separation as 
impossible as union now is. When we take 
comfort in saying that our failure to secure a 
consensus in dogma or in morals is parallel to 
our failure to secure agreement in science or in 
politics, we write our own condemnation, be- 
cause we have a solvent of our difficulties 
which they do not possess. 

Schleiermacher died in 1834. He became 
more evangelical towards the end of his life, 
and the whole tendency of his teaching was 
one of reconciliation. He believed that theol- 
ogy could be rescued from that degradation 
which was caused by its changing with the 
continually changing systems of philosophy. 
He magnified the inner life of the soul in its 
relation to God. With him religious feeling 
meant absolute dependence on God. He was 
against both supranaturalism and rationalism ; 
but he believed in the possibility of their 
reconciliation. In his Christian ethic's, the 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 233 

Christian consciousness is his foundation and 
starting-point. He tried to reconcile science 
with religion. We do not wonder at the in- 
fluence for good that his writings have had 
upon much of our modem religious thought. 
But it must be granted that so far as the 
Christian consciousness is concerned, his influ- 
ence was against its favorable reception by 
the Christian world. Schleiermacher had all 
the strength and the weakness of the great 
German thinkers. His strength lay in his 
originality as a thinker, his profound rever- 
ence for God, and his efforts at reconciliation 
of opposing doctrines. His weakness Avas that 
of more than one great German theologian. 
He had to found a school and to construct 
a system. The Christian consciousness was 
a reality ; but instead of patiently endeavor- 
ing to find the law of it in the individual 
and in the community, and the evidences of 
it in history, he puts it on a throne, and 
makes it supreme. He rejects the Trinity 
because it is not in the field of the Christian 
consciousness. No wonder that orthodoxy be- 
came alarmed, and imagined that this new 
thing was a cunning device of the enemy. 



234 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

We find certain writers using it to main- 
tain their position in eschatology, inspiration, 
and so forth ; but a weapon must not be 
judged by the arm that wields it, or by the 
motive which causes the blow. As we have 
already stated in a preceding chapter, we make 
no claim for the infallibility of the Christian 
consciousness ; but it is well to remember that 
to the individual the Christian consciousness 
is absolute certainty. To separate error of 
which we may feel very certain from that 
concerning which the Christian consciousness 
gives us certainty, is not always an easy task. 

The scepticism that was based on the as- 
serted antagonism of physical science to the 
teachings of the Scriptures has lost much of 
its importance, not only because theology lias 
reconciled some of the statements of science 
with the teaching of Scripture, but also because 
science has been again and again proved to be 
crude and hasty in her conclusions. Some 
of the most eminent scientific men of our 
day are earnest Christians, and able defenders 
of revealed religion. It is easy to anticipate 
and to believe in that comparatively near 
future, when the last echoes of the contro- 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 235 

versy between science and religion shall have 
died away, and the conflict of the last fifty 
years shall have become a matter of historical 
rather than of living interest. 

The higher criticism is for the most part 
reverent ; and while its opponents call it de- 
structive, it calls itself constructive. But even 
were its avowed purpose the assault on re- 
vealed religion which its opponents claim that 
it is, it is a controversy that has in itself the 
promise of finality. Were the conflict limited 
to textual criticism and anal}\sis, the opinions 
of the opposing groups of scholars would, ere 
long, assume definite shape; and the questions 
at issue would be settled as the millennarian 
question is settled, or as the question as to 
the subjects and mode of baptism is settled, — 
that is, by the recognition of irreconcilable 
difference of interpretation which we may in 
charity and in self-complacence lay at the 
door of the constitution of the human mind. 
Whether this is the only possible settlement, 
is an open question. It is possible, but not 
probable, that advancing scholarship and ar- 
chaeological discoveries may give complete vic- 
tory to one or other of the opposing critical 



236 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

schools. Resolutions as to original autographs 
are proofs of temper rather than of convic- 
tion ; but resolutions prove nothing. When the 
thing to be believed is settled by a majority 
vote, the minority ought to be dealt with in 
no uncertain fashion. Meanwhile, notwith- 
standing the lack of wisdom which 'both parties 
have occasionally exhibited, we may rest as- 
sured that the worst of the storm has blown 
over, and that the churches of Britain and 
America are not to be rent asunder by the 
higher criticism. 

The Christian consciousness has no place in 
the questions at issue between science and re- 
ligion, or in the questions raised by the higher 
criticism, except in so far as ever the character 
of God may be involved ; and many hold that 
the character of God is not involved in those 
issues. When the time of a correct* historical 
perspective has been reached, and some scholar 
of the future shall bring the history of apolo- 
getics up to date, the conflict between science 
and religion and the years of the higher criti- 
cism will be but incidents and episodes of a 
mighty whole. 

The moral difficulty is perennial and persis- 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 237 

tent. It has been the stronghold of scepti- 
cism of every shade throughout the centuries. 
We may put to one side all consideration of 
of dishonest doubt ; the doubt that is to honest 
doubt what hypocrisy is to religion ; the doubt 
that traffics on itself, and exhibits its sores for 
money ; the doubt that makes itself the justi- 
fication of an unclean life, or in any other way 
demonstrates that it is a conscious lie. Such 
a perversion of the moral nature has to be 
classed with other forms of open or of secret 
sin. 

But there is honest doubt; and while we may 
not be able to agree with Tennyson when lie 
said that there lived more faith in honest 
doubt than in half the creeds, our hearts go 
out in loving kindness to the men who beat 
their way from doubt to faith until at length 
the discord of their lives becomes divinest 
harmony. We can and do respect the men of 
clean lives, — men who are faithful to domes- 
tic ties and to public duties, — even when they, 
with apparent relish at their work, persistently 
assail revealed religion. Goethe somewhere re- 
marks that the mark of an honest doubter is 
his desire to get rid of his doubts. We will 



238 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

not presume to judge men ; and, therefore, we 
dare not say how many of our sceptical writers 
of to-day are honest according to this standard. 
The test is too severe, for we may concede 
honesty to the doubter who is not conscious of 
any desire to get rid of his doubts. But while 
granting this, we may well doubt the moral 
honesty of the sceptic who can live and die 
without earnest longing for the faith and the 
peace which he sees in others. Christian living 
and dying is not a theory or a dream. It is an 
every -day reality. 

But there is honest doubt, and there are 
honest doubters. This doubt is moral, even 
when we call it intellectual. The intellect 
is called into the service of doubt, for honest 
doubt must ever seek to justify itself. The 
Christian consciousness of the believer en- 
ables him to touch this doubt with healing. 
God asks us to prove him and try him. He 
has made us in his image, and given us dig- 
nity. God judges us, and we must judge 
God. We must be able to know clearly what 
we think about God and Christ. We can only 
justify God to man in proportion to our con- 
sciousness of God. The mission of Christ was 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 239 

to reveal the Father; and the more of the Chris- 
tian consciousness that we possess, the more 
shall we be able to reveal God to others. In its 
last analysis, honest doubt is not the questioning 
of miracles, or inspiration, or the immortality 
of the soul ; it is a misapprehension of the na- 
ture and the character of God. Some Chris- 
tians and many theists are worshipping an idol 
of their own making which they call God. 
"Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.'' 1 
The Christian consciousness reveals God. 

There are many earnest and diligent ob- 
servers of the signs of the times who see in 
the close of our century the most momentous 
time in the history of the world. Many of 
those who do not dabble in figures and dates 
in search for that hour which no man knows, 
are, nevertheless, persuaded of the probability 
of the near approach of the end of the age. 
There are others whose reasoning does not 
lead them in this direction, who are convinced 
that we are on the eve of stupendous political, 
social, and religious changes. Some publicists 
are sufficiently daring to assert that another 
great European war is impossible ; but that if 

1 John xiv. 8. 



240 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

it does occur, it will lead to the swift over- 
throw of this overgrown militarism, which, 
like a dead weight of barbarism, clings round 
the neck of Christian civilization. When the 
hour and the man come, the province of the 
Christian consciousness will be recognized as 
it has not been in the past. 

The three greatest movements of the latter 
half of our closing century in religious life 
and work are Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tions, the Salvation Army, and the Young 
People's Societies of Christian Endeavor. Sir 
George Williams, General Booth, and Dr. Clark, 
the justly esteemed fathers and founders of 
these three world-wide movements, are all at 
the front, each one being still at the head of the 
body which he founded. Each one of these great 
movements has risen by leaps and. bounds from 
obscurity and comparative insignificance into 
the world fame which it now has. It may be 
safely asserted that none of these three great 
leaders saw the world-wide name and fame that 
were coming to the societies which they organ- 
ized. While they are fit men, men of will 
power, and of administrative ability, as well as 
of personal consecration to their good work, 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 241 

none so ready and willing as they are to confess 
that they did not see the grand future, but they 
were conscious of present duty. Their Christian 
consciousness approved the thing that they did. 
The Young Men's Christian Association had to 
win its way against the lukewarmness, the sus- 
picion, and even the active opposition, of 
ministers and of churches ; but the movement 
had friends as well as opponents among the 
clergy. The Salvation Army was subjected to 
the rough and ready abuse of the mob, and 
to the petty tyranny of the Dogberries, who are 
not all dead. The majority of church-going, 
respectable people voted it a well-meant extrav- 
agance, and would have hailed its natural extinc- 
tion with satisfaction, though they upheld their 
right to march army fashion. To-day the Sal- 
vation Army is one of the great factors in all 
social problems, and the self-willed and erratic 
ex-Methodist preacher is consulted by bishops 
and statesmen. Learning and culture join in ap- 
plauding the old hero ; but he has not forgotten 
the days when decayed cabbages and ancient 
eggs were thrown at him. 

The Young People's Societies of Christian 
Endeavor made such a quick march into all the 



242 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

churches, and overcame all question and oppo- 
sition so quickly, that Ave almost forget that 
there was any question or debate or opposition. 
God is in his world ; and in his moral and spirit- 
ual world lie is in it by being in the hearts of 
men. These three men were chosen for this 
work that was given to each of them. They 
could not perhaps quote chapter and verse for 
every step that they took ; but it Avas a pathway 
of prayer, and their Christian consciousness was 
contented. 

Our denominations and our common Chris- 
tianity have achieved much. There is no need 
for pessimism; but the failures are many, and 
the strifes are many. When the hour and the 
man come that shall lead us into the better 
time that is coming, there may be antagonism, 
but the victory is sure. The Christian con- 
sciousness will save us from the selfishness 
that characterizes our administration of our 
material possessions, and from the strife and 
vainglory of ecclesiasticism. Its positive gift 
to the church of the future is that largeness of 
view which will enable the denominations to 
forget their dead past, and to go forward one 
army to possess the earth. The good time com- 



OBJECTIONS AND POSSIBILITIES 243 

ing will in some things resemble the church 
before schisms rent her, and heresies distressed 
her. " One body, one spirit, one hope, one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and 
Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you ALL." 1 " God in us " is the key to 
the whole. This is the fairest and fullest ex- 
pression of the " Christian consciousness." 

There have been developments in morals and 
in dogma that are ultra-biblical so far as all 
current and antecedent exegesis was concerned. 
After the evolution was an accomplished fact, 
an ex post facto interpretation comes to the 
front, and justifies the ways of man to god. 
It vaguely defines itself as the spirit, in con- 
tradistinction from the letter, of the word. 2 No 
passage has been of such various use as this in 
which Paul draws a sharp contrast between the 
method and genius of the Old and New Testa- 
ments. The doctrine of the Christian con- 
sciousness solves past difficulties, and promises 
a future of gracious possibilities. It is always 
reverent. It believes in the indwelling Christ. 
The dispensation of the Spirit can never thrill 
the world with holy purpose until the Christian 

i Eph. iv. 4 6. 2 2 Cor. iii. G. 



244 THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 

consciousness is heartily recognized and ac- 
cepted. The Christ in us struggles in vain 
for fullest expression until we hail the Chris- 
tian consciousness. The Christian conscious- 
ness has ultra-biblical sanctions, but it has no 
ultra-Christian sanctions in morals and in dogma. 
" For other foundation can no man lay than this 
is laid, which is Jesus Christ." * 

i 1 Cor. iii. 11. 



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